


The Sins of the Fathers (1/4)

by Nightdog_Barks



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Cults, Gen, Hostage Situation, Mystery, Religious Themes & References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-31
Updated: 2008-10-30
Packaged: 2017-10-18 05:30:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightdog_Barks/pseuds/Nightdog_Barks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story for Halloween.  This section is 5,450 words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> See the Notes after the Epilogue.

_**_House_ fic: The Sins of the Fathers (1/4)**_  
 **TITLE:** The Sins of the Fathers (1/4)  
 **AUTHOR:** [](http://nightdog-writes.livejournal.com/profile)[**nightdog_writes**](http://nightdog-writes.livejournal.com/)  
 **CHARACTERS:** House, Wilson, various OCs  
 **RATING:** R, for rough language, violence, and some stressful situations.  
 **WARNINGS:** Yes, for rough language and some violence.  
 **SPOILERS:** Yes, for episode 5.04, "Birthmarks"  
 **SUMMARY:** A story for Halloween. This section is 5,450 words.  
 **DISCLAIMER:** Don't own 'em. Never will.  
 **AUTHOR NOTES:** See the Notes after the Epilogue.  
 **BETA:** My intrepid First Readers, who willfully encouraged this nonsense. Especial thanks to [](http://jadesfire2808.livejournal.com/profile)[**jadesfire2808**](http://jadesfire2808.livejournal.com/) for the final read-through, [](http://pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com/profile)[**pwcorgigirl**](http://pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com/) for the amazing banner, and [](http://blackmare-9.livejournal.com/profile)[**blackmare_9**](http://blackmare-9.livejournal.com/) , who said, "But what does it do?".

[   
](http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/NightDog58/?action=view&current=SinsoftheFathers.jpg)

  
_April, 2009_

  
The keys landed on Wilson's desk with a jingling thump; he pulled back for a moment, startled, as a shadow loomed. The handle of a cane pushed the keys closer like a croupier shoving forward a stack of gaming chips. Wilson's eyes narrowed -- that brushed steel tag on the keychain looked _very_ familiar -- and a quick glance at the telltale car-make stamped into the small rectangle confirmed it.

"House," Wilson said. "These are my keys."

"Well, duh." Ballpoint pens went rolling and papers and casefiles were unceremoniously crushed as House settled himself on one edge of the desk. "My keys won't fit in your car. That's why we need _your_ keys."

"That's why we need my keys for _what?_ " Executing a pre-emptive strike, Wilson grabbed the keys and dropped them in a lab-coat pocket before House could steal them again.

"So you can drive me to Cape May, of course."

Wilson sighed. "I'm not driving you to Cape May, House."

"Sure you are."

"No, I'm _not_. Unlike you, I have more than four patients a month -- "

"Not today you don't."

"Why do I feel like I've already been outmaneuvered before you even came in here?"

House looked exceedingly pleased with himself. "Because you have?" he suggested. "Cuddy's got this crazy notion -- I don't know _where_ it came from -- that I get into trouble when I take road trips by myself." He twisted his face into an exaggerated expression of puzzlement. "See? Told you it was crazy." He stood up. "When I told her I needed to go down to Cape May, she cleared your calendar, told Brown to take your patients and meetings today."

Wilson leaned back in his chair and rubbed wearily at his eyes.

"Cuddy's a wise woman," he said. "Not only does she know _you_ , but she knows what happened the _last_ time I took you on a road trip."

"You _told_ her we got arrested?"

"I didn't have to, seeing as how you were narrating the entire episode to your fellows as it was happening." He blinked -- red and black dots swam before his eyes. "What if I don't want to go to Cape May?"

"You haven't got much of a choice. She's your -- and my -- boss. The Dean. The administratrix. And if you put those two together, you get _dominatrix_." House's expression softened slightly, and his tone turned more wheedling. "Come on, it won't be that bad. We can stop at Monmouth Park on the way back, see how the ponies are running."

"House, I don't care about the ponies."

"Fine. We can stop in Atlantic City, see how the girls are running." He rapped the side of Wilson's desk with his cane. "Come _on_. Sooner we go, the sooner you can get back here for your precious paperwork."

Wilson sighed again and stood up.

"Do I get to know _why_ we're going to Cape May?" he asked. He shucked his labcoat and placed it carefully onto a hanger, then winced as House grabbed the hanger and jammed it roughly onto the rack.

"I'll tell you on the way," House said. "Let's go."

* * *

"You would have liked him," House announced.

Wilson didn't look away from the road. "Liked who?"

"My great-uncle."

Wilson frowned. "I thought you didn't like _any_ of your relatives."

"Only the ones on my dad's side."

"Okay, I'm not going there."

"Too long a story for this trip," House agreed.

"So I'm assuming your great-uncle is the reason we're going to Cape May."

"Yep. He's dead."

"I gathered that. Y'know, from the way you were speaking of him in the past tense. And I can't believe we're on another funeral trip." Wilson gripped the steering wheel a little tighter; his knuckles whitened and he made a conscious effort to relax. "I'm sorry."

House shrugged. "Don't be. He wasn't."

Wilson looked at him, surprised.

"He was my grandmother's oldest brother," House said. "Ninety-eight if he was a day. The last time I talked with him he was looking forward to finding out what was on the other side." House glanced out the window, seemingly engrossed in the New Jersey countryside rolling past. "Or if there _was_ anything. Either way, he wanted to find out. And the funeral was a week ago."

Despite himself, Wilson smiled and huffed out a soft laugh. "Sounds like he was quite a guy."

"He was. Started out in anthropology at the University of Chicago. By the time I knew him he was at Cornell; I'd go visit every summer when we stayed at my grandmother's." House eased back in the passenger seat, his eyes distant with memory. "He taught American folklore, all the way from the earliest days -- Pilgrims, witchburnings, fetishism, shamanism and myth. Oral traditions. His class on the supernatural in the modern world was one of the most popular courses on campus." He lifted his chin a little. "You should have seen his office. It was like a back room of the Smithsonian."

Wilson kept silent, waiting for House to continue. A truck roared past, a giant, cheerful salmon grinning down at them from its side.

"He had everything," House said. "A stuffed passenger pigeon, a winter-count buffalo hide, an Onondaga war club, a _shrunken head_." He glanced sideways at Wilson. "He used to tell me he had a jar of clay, taken from what was left of the Prague _golem_." He quirked a smile at Wilson's bark of laughter. "Said he got it from a Czech refugee he sponsored." He rested his head on the seatback for a moment. "He ended up at Miskatonic University up in Arkham, doing original research. When he retired he moved down to Cape May -- he said he just wanted to watch the waves the rest of his life."

Another truck went by, its tailpipe belching oily smoke.

"So now I know everything except why we're going to Cape May."

"He left me something," House said. When he didn't say anything else, Wilson looked at him curiously.

"What?" he asked.

"Now _that_ ," House said, "is what _I_ don't know."

* * *

"It's ... a cuckoo clock?"

"It doesn't look like any cuckoo clock I've seen before."

"It is not a cuckoo clock."

Both House and Wilson looked up. Soucek had come back into the room, carefully balancing a tea tray, the teapot and saucers rattling lightly in his palsied hands. Wilson rose quickly from his seat and took the silver tray.

"Thank you," Soucek said. His voice bore only the lightest trace of a Central European accent.

A breeze came up, and the embroidered cotton drapes billowed in the clean spring air. The breeze carried with it a salty sea tang, and the slim, black branches of the dogwood trees in the front yard of the tiny cottage swayed. A few of the petals of the white flowers went swirling on the wind.

"So we've determined it's not a cuckoo clock," House said, taking one of the china teacups. The porcelain was thin, a pale green Easter eggshell in his long fingers. "What is it?"

Soucek took a cautious sip of his tea.

"I do not know," he said. "Hendrik never told me."

Wilson drank a bit of his own tea as he eyed the device on the table. It certainly _looked_ like a cuckoo clock, all the way from the little trapdoor just beneath the peaked roof to the clockface on the front. The dark wood had been carved in various fantastical patterns, but the work was not as ornate or heavy as with most Black Forest clocks. Flocks of tiny birds took wing around the clock dial, startled into flight by leaping foxes. The heads and tails of the birds and foxes blended together, carved so closely so that they formed a continuous, unbroken dance of escape and pursuit. Peering closer, he thought he could discern minute human faces among the feathers and fur, their mouths frozen in silent shouts at the joy of the hunt. A faint ticking sound came from the interior of the piece, but the hands too were frozen, straight up and down, at six o'clock, and despite the marking of the hour, no tiny automaton burst through the trapdoor to whistle six cheery notes.

"You can see, Doctor, why I did not wish to entrust it the shipping companies," Soucek murmured, and Wilson switched his attention from the clock to the man serving them tea.

Dusan Soucek was old, the kind of old that, paradoxically, made it impossible to determine his age. He had the typical liver spots and white, almost translucent hair of the aged, but his brown eyes were bright and sharp, without a trace of the mental confusion that so often accompanied the long, slow slide into the twilight years.

He had greeted them at the front door before Wilson had even pressed the button for the bell, inviting the two men in with a courtly wave of one hand. Once inside, Wilson had looked curiously around as House and the old man had continued to speak.

The cottage had not been renovated to modern tastes, as so many of the small Cape May houses had been in order to appeal to summer renters. The floor was wooden, oaken planks worn smooth by years of scuffing soles. An enormous sofa, covered in some ivory cloth resembling watered silk, claimed its place of privilege by an open fireplace that looked large enough to roast a quarter steer in. The walls were lined with towering bookshelves that reached almost to the ceiling, and every volume in the shelves had obviously been cracked open and read at some time in its printed life. Area rugs -- finely-woven _kilims_ in patterns of red and black -- were scattered about. Framed photographs had been placed on the small end tables, and Wilson leaned forward to look more closely at one.

Two men smiled back at him. One was obviously their host, albeit decades younger; the other, he guessed, was House's great-uncle Hendrik. The family resemblance was clear -- the long, aquiline face, the high forehead. Although the photograph was in black-and-white, the man's eyes were light, probably a shade of blue not too dissimilar from his great-nephew's.

The picture had been taken at a happy time; the men had their arms about each other's shoulders and Dusan was holding up a small American flag in one hand, displaying it proudly for the camera. There was something vaguely _off_ to the arrangement of the stars on the flag, and it had taken Wilson a moment to realize it was because there were 48 of them, lined up neatly in eight rows of six, forming a tidy rectangle on the azure field. He straightened and looked around again.

Dusan was still talking to House, pointing variously at the additional objects around the room. Wilson followed House's gaze, taking in the sawn-down totem pole lurking in one corner, the long, yellowed length of elephant tusk in the other, the painted mummy case by the parlor door.

Wilson drew his brows together thoughtfully. The parlor was full of _things_ \-- antiques, curios, mementos -- it should have felt crowded and claustrophobic. Instead, the sunbeams pouring in through the lightly-curtained windows lent it an air of openness, of bright clarity undimmed by the darkness of the objects inside.

It was almost, Wilson had pondered, as if the _interior_ of the cottage was bigger than the _exterior_.

He'd shaken his head at the impossibility of the notion, and returned to House's side.

Their host was offering them tea.

* * *

The cuckoo clock that was not a cuckoo clock sat forgotten on the table as Dusan outlined the rest of House's inheritance.

"Anything in the house you wish," he said. "Any of the books, papers, the items that Hendrik collected over the years." He dabbed gently at his lips with one of the folded linen napkins. "There is a particularly fine sixteenth-century edition of Dioscorides' _De materia medica_ he thought you might be interested in."

"And you, Mr. Soucek?" House drawled. "What are you interested in?"

The old man shook his head. "What I was interested in is no longer here," he said. "Hendrik left me this house, and instructions for what is to be shipped to the university in Arkham. After that ... " He shrugged, seemingly disinterested in further discussion.

There was a hushed fluttering nearby, and Wilson looked around, noticing for the first time the plastic bird feeder attached to the windowsill. Several small birds, a mix of chickadees, sparrows, and yellow warblers, were perching on the feeder's edge, delicately picking millet and sunflower seeds from the clear container. The old man's expression softened.

" _Protonotaria citrea_ ," House said. " _Melospiza melodia_."

Dusan Soucek smiled. "Hendrik loved birds," he said.

* * *

"Wait, why are you turning left?"

"Because I'm not taking 9 all the way back."

"It was good enough for you before."

"That was before you told that antique-shop proprietor in Barnegat that his 1915 baseball cards were all fake."

"They were! _Genuine_ Cracker Jack cards didn't use white ink! The uniforms should've been the same color as the card stock!"

"Yeah, well, did you have to _announce_ it to the whole store?"

"How was I to know he'd get so pissed off?"

"I really think you should have stopped talking when he reached under the counter."

"Maybe you're right. Hey -- you think that was a vintage bat? It looked like hickory."

"I wouldn't know. I was too busy trying to pull you out of there. Guy's probably still waiting for us to drive back by so he can shoot out our tires."

"I don't believe this. When did you become such a scaredy-cat?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

"No. Besides, it's good you're going this way. We can stop at Vera's, see if their homemade pies are as good as they claim. Start watching for signs for Pleasant Grove."

"Pleasant _Grove?_ House, that's _miles_ out of our way!"

"So?"

"It's in the middle of _nowhere!_ We're running late already, and Soucek said not to take any detours after dark!"

"What, are you afraid you'll end up in _Blair Witch Project_? You know that was just a movie, right?"

"I'm not afraid of anything. I'm just being prudent. And we're not stopping."

"I'll get the rhubarb. You can have the apple, 'cause you're boring that way."

"Still not stopping, House."

"You think they make their whipped cream fresh or out of a can? Oh well, I guess we'll find out."

"No, we won't, because we're not stopping. Not at Vera's, not anywhere else. We're driving straight through to Princeton, and that's final."

* * *

"What do you think?" House's voice was somewhat muffled around his mouthful of pie, but he continued speaking anyway. "Too much nutmeg?"

Wilson ignored him. Instead he leaned against his padded seatback and looked around.

At this time of night, he'd expected Vera's to resemble the sparsely-populated diner in Edward Hopper's famous _Nighthawks_ \-- a way station for the lonely and lost.

This place was _busy_. They'd had to wait 20 minutes for a table to free up, a time spent mostly by Wilson looking pointedly at his watch, watching as yet more customers lined up behind them, seemingly content to wait as long as necessary. The waitresses, none of whom looked a day under fifty-five, wove through the crowded diner with a smooth, practiced efficiency. They bore plates of hamburgers, baskets of french fries, even platters of scrambled eggs and bacon ( _BREAKFASTES SERV D 24 HOURS!_ , the cheerfully misspelled sign out front had proclaimed), all balanced precariously on the huge round trays they carried on their tanned, sinewy arms.

Everything shone under the buzzing fluorescent lights -- bright chrome and red vinyl, the tall fountain glasses of milkshakes and malteds. An enormous, jangling jukebox stood against one wall, humming and clacking as it dropped real 45 rpm records onto its spinning turntable. The music could barely be heard above the laughing, chattering patrons, but Wilson thought he detected the upbeat rhythms of the Beach Boys, the crooning lull of Tony Bennett. He found himself half-expecting to spy Rob and Laura Petrie in a cozy corner, sharing a short stack with Sheriff Taylor and Barney Fife.

"Anything else for you gentlemen?"

Wilson looked up, startled. It was their waitress, a woman of imposing stature, made even taller by her towering beehive hairstyle. House had muttered something about Marge Simpson when she'd first approached, then yelped when Wilson had kicked him under the table. Her fingertips were stained yellow with nicotine, and she was wearing entirely too much red lipstick. Her nametag identified her as "Rhonda."

"Another piece of pie? Top off your coffee?"

"I think we're fine, thank you," Wilson said.

"How about some eggs? Lighthouse? French toast, with a side of sausage? Vera's special recipe, best in the valley!"

"No, that's -- " Wilson began.

"What valley would that be?" House interjected. Rhonda turned the full wattage of her smile on him.

"The Creech Valley," she said. "Just down the road a ways, where they're puttin' in the new retirement village." She winked at House. "You boys aren't ready to retire yet, are ya?"

"I ... don't think so," Wilson replied. From a few tables over, a small child began whining.

"Too bad," Rhonda said. "'Cause you fellas could darken my door anytime!" She laughed -- it was a hiccuping, braying sound, but so infectiously good-natured that Wilson found himself smiling back.

"Down, tiger," House admonished. "Rhonda here's a pistol -- way too hot for you to handle." The child's whining grew in volume, despite his mother's obvious attempts to shush him.

Rhonda grinned at the both of them. "Oh, I don't know about that," she said. "It's the quiet ones that'll surprise ya."

" -- a _Happy Meal!_ " The boy's piercing demand soared above the diner noise, and in the startled silence that followed, his mother's response was clearly audible.

"Thomas Jay Prescott!" she scolded. "If you don't behave _right now_ , I'm going to _give you to the Creeches!_ "

The boy burst into tears. Rhonda rolled her eyes.

"Terri!" she called. "Root beer float, table 10!"

"Is that some kind of secret waitress code?" House asked as the ambient restaurant din slowly resumed.

"Nope," Rhonda said. "Means we're gonna give the little rugrat a root beer float."

"Instead of to the Creeches."

The waitress shook her head. "It's just a local expression," she said. "Moms have been using it to scare their babies into sittin' up straight and flyin' right ever since I can remember."

"Obedience through terror," House muttered sourly. "Great."

Wilson winced, but Rhonda just smiled.

"Seems to work pretty well around here," she said. "Crime rate in the valley's lowest in the state." She shifted briefly, making room for Terri to get by with her precious cargo of ice cream, a vanilla island nestled in a dark brown, foamy sea. "We don't seem to have very many _repeat offenders_." Her pen hovered above her order pad.

"Sure I can't get you gentlemen anything else?"

* * *

 _This is how it happened:_

"You took a wrong turn," House said.

"I did not."

"Oh, come on. You had to -- we should have been back on the freeway by now."

" _I didn't take a wrong turn_." Wilson squinted through the windshield at the dark woods pressing in on either side. "It's like somebody ripped out all the damn signs."

"Rhonda," House said. "Rhonda did it in order to lead all the guys she takes a fancy to back to the diner so she can make them her love slaves."

Despite his growing frustration ( _where the **hell** had the road gone?_ ) Wilson smiled. In that moment there was a huge jolt from the front of the Volvo, a blow so bone-jarring that the car itself seemed to stagger like a wounded animal. Wilson instinctively threw an arm out, bracing House against the passenger seat, but in the next instant, before he could even take his foot off the accelerator, a second massive concussion sent the vehicle lurching sideways.

" _Fuck!_ " Wilson let go of House, grabbing the steering wheel with both hands. The car struggled, listing heavily to the right. _Sinking,_ Wilson thought, a flash of sudden, irrational memory replaying an ancient movie clip in his mind. _Holed below the waterline and sinking fast._ He took his foot off the gas, pumped the brake, downshifted. The Volvo drifted, its tail swinging out. _Steer into the curve._ The glove box popped open, and he caught a glimpse of white tissues scattering like tiny cranes taken to wing. Everything was moving in slow motion.

"Come _on_ ," Wilson breathed, and gripped the wheel tighter, as if by sheer force of will he could _end_ this, end it ...

 _... now_. And perhaps his force of will was stronger than he thought, because the car came to a shivering, rattling halt.

Wilson's ears were buzzing, his hands shaking. He felt light-headed and a little sick, and the way his heart was pounding he almost expected to look down and see his shirtfront bouncing back and forth like a cartoon character's. He was seized by a giddy sense of relief.

 _Not dead. I'm not dead. **We're** not dead._ A different fear took over though, when he looked at House, because in the soft green glow from the dashboard display, House appeared to _wish_ he were dead.

He was gripping his thigh with both hands, eyes squeezed shut and teeth bared in a ferocious, bright grin of pain.

" _House!_ Shit! Are you okay?" Wilson unsnapped his seat belt, twisting to get both his hands on House's shoulders even as the center console dug into his hip.

"'Mmm okay," House gritted out. "Jarred my leg ... hard ... when you hit ... whatever the fuck you hit. Deer. Bear. Elephant."

"I didn't _hit_ anything," Wilson snapped. And he hadn't, he _knew_ he hadn't -- his brother hit a deer once when they were kids, and he still remembered the horrible, sickening _thump_ of impact, the way the animal had rolled up onto the hood and they hadn't been able to see anything but brown fur smashed up against the windshield. The car, a hand-me-down Pacer, had been totaled. His dad had been furious.

"Fine," House grunted. He leaned back a little -- the pain apparently easing but his eyes still closed, and the fact that he wasn't protesting more was troubling. Wilson reached up and flipped on the dome light, and the artificial white light filled the car's interior.

"Shouldn't be looking _inside_ ," House said. "Find out what's happened _outside_."

"I didn't hit anything," Wilson mumbled again, but he switched on the high-beams nonetheless. The amped-up headlights shot out into the darkness, illuminating the painted fluorescent lane markers, the expanse of tarmac before them and the edge of the woods beyond that. No dead deer, no dead elephant, no dead anything.

 _No dead **us** ,_ Wilson thought, and felt the thrill of relief again. There was something wrong, though, something wrong with the road. They'd come to their juddering stop on the grassy shoulder; the headlights were casting long, reflective light-streams back onto the pavement, and in the middle of the streams there was a blank spot. A black hole. Wilson squinted, taking a moment to realize what he was seeing.

A pothole. A huge, _gaping_ pothole, the size, a late-night comedian would say, of Delaware. A hole big enough to ...

The sick feeling returned. "Hold on," he muttered to House, who mumbled something that sounded vaguely like "You bet" in response. Wilson's fingers fumbled at the door opener, and when he finally stepped outside he swayed for a moment on his feet.

The left side of the Volvo was fine. No scrapes, no scratches, solid and reassuring -- except for the way it was still listing, tilting noticeably to the right. Wilson took a deep breath and walked around to the other side. House's side, where the reason for the tilt was clear.

Both tires, front and back, had been blown flat by the impact with the pothole. Not only flat, but _shredded_ \-- a trail of black rubber tread led back to the hole, and the car itself rested sadly on the dented steel rims.

"Oh, _crap_ ," Wilson murmured. He toed at one of the pieces of curled-up rubber. There was a low hum, and House poked his head out of the rolled-down passenger window.

"Is it as bad as I think it is?" he asked. Wilson rubbed at the back of his neck.

"Depends on how you define 'bad,'" he replied. "If by 'bad' you mean only one flat tire, then no, it's worse."

"Ah," House said, and disappeared back inside the car. Wilson joined him a moment later, settling himself back into the driver's seat as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. A quick perusal of the tiny, backlit screen, though, told the story.

"No signal," he groaned. "Great. What _else_ can go wrong?"

"In a horror movie -- "

" _House_ ," Wilson warned. House set his jaw in a mulish line but fell silent. Wilson closed his eyes and pinched at the bridge of his nose.

"Okay," he said. "I'm going to walk back to the diner. It's only a couple of miles, they'll have landlines and I can call Triple A from there." He turned the key in the ignition, shutting off the engine. It was suddenly very quiet in the car. "Save the battery," he said, and thumbed on the hazard lights. A steady on-and-off, on-and-off blinking began. He handed the keys to House. "If somebody happens by before I get back you can flag them down."

"And what am I supposed to do while you're being Dudley Do-right?"

"Oh, I don't know." Wilson smirked as he started out of the car again. "Maybe put your seat back and dream about being Rhonda's love slave?"

House shuddered in a mock expression of horror.

"Seriously," Wilson chuckled. "Take a Vicodin and relax. This'll take a while."

* * *

Wilson had decided, after a great deal of thought, that he didn't like walking in the woods at night. It was dark, for one thing, and although that shouldn't have been a surprise, it was. He was used to nights full of artificial light -- the hospital parking lot, a grocery store, his apartment, all of them illuminated by friendly, _safe_ light. Out here the only light was from the stars, and there was damn little of that. He stumbled, and cursed softly before regaining his footing and trudging on.

There were things in the woods too -- things he could hear, scrabbling around in the underbrush. Still, he'd managed to keep from using the little emergency flashlight he was carrying until after one of those things had actually squealed from close by. He had flicked it on then, shining its small, weak beam into the woods.

A pair of golden eyes had looked back at him, seemingly suspended about a foot off the ground.

Wilson had gasped -- a short, sharp inhalation of breath. "Scat," he had commanded, in what he had hoped was an intimidating tone. "Go on." He had waved his arms. " _Get out of here!_ "

The eyes had blinked at him, then disappeared, and he'd stood for a long moment before turning and walking on.

He saw a few more things after that -- broken bottles, wooden fenceposts strung with wire, delineating the boundary of someone's property. There were never any gates, though, and after a while he stopped looking. He found only one signpost, dark and rusty with age, its letters barely visible through the flaking corrosion -- _CREECHVILLE PIKE_.

"A fine place to raise your kids up," he murmured.

He was very glad to see the approaching headlights a few minutes later. He switched on the flashlight, stepped forward, and waved his arms in the air.

* * *

"A little late to be out for a walk, ain't it, Mister?"

The man behind the wheel of the pickup truck grinned down at him. Wilson smiled back. The truck was red, one of those big extended-cab models, and behind the dark-tinted windows he could see the vague shadows of other occupants in the back seat.

"It sure is," Wilson replied. "My car broke down a couple of miles back. I wonder if you could -- "

The cab door opened, and Wilson took an instinctive step back. The driver chuckled.

"S'okay," he said. "We've been on the road awhile ourselves. Dan's just gotta stretch his legs a bit."

The man who emerged from the darkness certainly looked as if he might need to stretch his legs -- he was tall and lanky, dressed in a red-and-black checked flannel shirt, his blue jeans tucked carefully into brown leather work boots. His short brown hair and blue eyes made him a virtual twin for the pickup's driver. He smiled and nodded apologetically at Wilson, then strode off into the night.

"I was just wondering -- " Wilson started again.

Another cab door opened, this time on the opposite, passenger's side. Wilson watched as the dome light that should have gone on stayed dark.

"Uh," Wilson said. He dragged his gaze back to the driver.

The driver was still smiling at him. This time, however, it was from over the barrel of a gun.

Wilson swallowed, his throat suddenly ash-dry. A twig cracked behind him, and he flinched as the cold muzzle of another gun pressed into the tender patch of skin beneath his right ear.

"Are you armed?" Dan whispered. "Tell me the truth, now."

"No," Wilson said. It was very hard to speak, and he struggled to keep his voice from cracking.

"The sheep never are," the pickup driver said. "That's why they're sheep." His gun hadn't wavered.

The other man had come around the front of the truck -- he appeared to be about House's age, and he too was tall and brown-haired.

"Now, Zeb," he said calmly. "You know as well as I do that the sheep are truly blessed, for they are the ones who see God before the rest of us. We are merely the shepherds." He raised his voice. "Benjamin? Come on, let's wrap this up and get going."

Wilson stood frozen as yet another man climbed down from the cab. He looked younger than the other three, but had the same coloring and lanky build.

 _Clown car,_ Wilson thought. _How many brothers does it take to fill one up?_ He was aware that he had begun to sweat.

"Look," he said softly. "If it's -- I have money -- my wallet -- just take it -- "

"Money is the root of all that's evil," the oldest man said. His tone was even and matter-of-fact, as if he'd just stated that the earth was round or that black was the absence of light.

"Hold out your hands," Dan said. He pressed the gun a little harder into Wilson's head.

Wilson put his hands out, and watched numbly as Benjamin tied his wrists together with a length of what looked like plain nylon clothesline rope. He worked quickly and efficiently, his tongue sticking out just a little as he cinched the loops tight and pulled the last knot tight. When he was finished he stepped back. Dan stepped forward, taking hold of the dangling end of the rope. He tugged on it like a leash.

"Come on," he said. "Sheep ride in the back."

* * *

Dan's words echoed in Wilson's mind as he lay on his side, jouncing uncomfortably on the hard steel truck bed.

The brothers had finished tying him up with the rest of the clothesline, roping his ankles together, securing his bound wrists to his bent knees, until in the end he had resembled nothing so much as a trussed-up rodeo calf. Then they'd spread the weatherproof tarp cover over the truck bed and snapped it down, plunging Wilson into a warm, close darkness.

He'd felt the brothers get back in the truck, the doors slamming shut one by one. They'd kept the engine running the whole time, and he slid back a few inches as the driver gunned the truck forward.

Wilson tried pulling at his bonds. He tried shouting, but his voice was lost in the roar of the big motor. He doubted anyone could hear it beyond the bed cover anyway.

He doubted there was anyone around to hear it.

 _At least,_ he thought, _at least these crazy fucks didn't find House._

***** 

The truck sped past the crippled Volvo, its caution lights still blinking forlornly in the night.

The Creech brothers didn't spare it a second glance.

[Part Two](http://nightdog-barks.livejournal.com/1020902.html#cutid1)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This section is 3,497 words.

_**_House_ fic: The Sins of the Fathers (1/4)**_  
 **TITLE:** The Sins of the Fathers (1/4)  
 **AUTHOR:** [](http://nightdog-writes.livejournal.com/profile)[**nightdog_writes**](http://nightdog-writes.livejournal.com/)  
 **CHARACTERS:** House, Wilson, various OCs  
 **RATING:** R, for rough language, violence, and some stressful situations.  
 **WARNINGS:** Yes, for rough language and some violence.  
 **SPOILERS:** Yes, for episode 5.04, "Birthmarks"  
 **SUMMARY:** A story for Halloween. This section is 5,450 words.  
 **DISCLAIMER:** Don't own 'em. Never will.  
 **AUTHOR NOTES:** See the Notes after the Epilogue.  
 **BETA:** My intrepid First Readers, who willfully encouraged this nonsense. Especial thanks to [](http://jadesfire2808.livejournal.com/profile)[**jadesfire2808**](http://jadesfire2808.livejournal.com/) for the final read-through, [](http://pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com/profile)[**pwcorgigirl**](http://pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com/) for the amazing banner, and [](http://blackmare-9.livejournal.com/profile)[**blackmare_9**](http://blackmare-9.livejournal.com/) , who said, "But what does it do?".

[   
](http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/NightDog58/?action=view&current=SinsoftheFathers.jpg)

  
_April, 2009_

  
The keys landed on Wilson's desk with a jingling thump; he pulled back for a moment, startled, as a shadow loomed. The handle of a cane pushed the keys closer like a croupier shoving forward a stack of gaming chips. Wilson's eyes narrowed -- that brushed steel tag on the keychain looked _very_ familiar -- and a quick glance at the telltale car-make stamped into the small rectangle confirmed it.

"House," Wilson said. "These are my keys."

"Well, duh." Ballpoint pens went rolling and papers and casefiles were unceremoniously crushed as House settled himself on one edge of the desk. "My keys won't fit in your car. That's why we need _your_ keys."

"That's why we need my keys for _what?_ " Executing a pre-emptive strike, Wilson grabbed the keys and dropped them in a lab-coat pocket before House could steal them again.

"So you can drive me to Cape May, of course."

Wilson sighed. "I'm not driving you to Cape May, House."

"Sure you are."

"No, I'm _not_. Unlike you, I have more than four patients a month -- "

"Not today you don't."

"Why do I feel like I've already been outmaneuvered before you even came in here?"

House looked exceedingly pleased with himself. "Because you have?" he suggested. "Cuddy's got this crazy notion -- I don't know _where_ it came from -- that I get into trouble when I take road trips by myself." He twisted his face into an exaggerated expression of puzzlement. "See? Told you it was crazy." He stood up. "When I told her I needed to go down to Cape May, she cleared your calendar, told Brown to take your patients and meetings today."

Wilson leaned back in his chair and rubbed wearily at his eyes.

"Cuddy's a wise woman," he said. "Not only does she know _you_ , but she knows what happened the _last_ time I took you on a road trip."

"You _told_ her we got arrested?"

"I didn't have to, seeing as how you were narrating the entire episode to your fellows as it was happening." He blinked -- red and black dots swam before his eyes. "What if I don't want to go to Cape May?"

"You haven't got much of a choice. She's your -- and my -- boss. The Dean. The administratrix. And if you put those two together, you get _dominatrix_." House's expression softened slightly, and his tone turned more wheedling. "Come on, it won't be that bad. We can stop at Monmouth Park on the way back, see how the ponies are running."

"House, I don't care about the ponies."

"Fine. We can stop in Atlantic City, see how the girls are running." He rapped the side of Wilson's desk with his cane. "Come _on_. Sooner we go, the sooner you can get back here for your precious paperwork."

Wilson sighed again and stood up.

"Do I get to know _why_ we're going to Cape May?" he asked. He shucked his labcoat and placed it carefully onto a hanger, then winced as House grabbed the hanger and jammed it roughly onto the rack.

"I'll tell you on the way," House said. "Let's go."

* * *

"You would have liked him," House announced.

Wilson didn't look away from the road. "Liked who?"

"My great-uncle."

Wilson frowned. "I thought you didn't like _any_ of your relatives."

"Only the ones on my dad's side."

"Okay, I'm not going there."

"Too long a story for this trip," House agreed.

"So I'm assuming your great-uncle is the reason we're going to Cape May."

"Yep. He's dead."

"I gathered that. Y'know, from the way you were speaking of him in the past tense. And I can't believe we're on another funeral trip." Wilson gripped the steering wheel a little tighter; his knuckles whitened and he made a conscious effort to relax. "I'm sorry."

House shrugged. "Don't be. He wasn't."

Wilson looked at him, surprised.

"He was my grandmother's oldest brother," House said. "Ninety-eight if he was a day. The last time I talked with him he was looking forward to finding out what was on the other side." House glanced out the window, seemingly engrossed in the New Jersey countryside rolling past. "Or if there _was_ anything. Either way, he wanted to find out. And the funeral was a week ago."

Despite himself, Wilson smiled and huffed out a soft laugh. "Sounds like he was quite a guy."

"He was. Started out in anthropology at the University of Chicago. By the time I knew him he was at Cornell; I'd go visit every summer when we stayed at my grandmother's." House eased back in the passenger seat, his eyes distant with memory. "He taught American folklore, all the way from the earliest days -- Pilgrims, witchburnings, fetishism, shamanism and myth. Oral traditions. His class on the supernatural in the modern world was one of the most popular courses on campus." He lifted his chin a little. "You should have seen his office. It was like a back room of the Smithsonian."

Wilson kept silent, waiting for House to continue. A truck roared past, a giant, cheerful salmon grinning down at them from its side.

"He had everything," House said. "A stuffed passenger pigeon, a winter-count buffalo hide, an Onondaga war club, a _shrunken head_." He glanced sideways at Wilson. "He used to tell me he had a jar of clay, taken from what was left of the Prague _golem_." He quirked a smile at Wilson's bark of laughter. "Said he got it from a Czech refugee he sponsored." He rested his head on the seatback for a moment. "He ended up at Miskatonic University up in Arkham, doing original research. When he retired he moved down to Cape May -- he said he just wanted to watch the waves the rest of his life."

Another truck went by, its tailpipe belching oily smoke.

"So now I know everything except why we're going to Cape May."

"He left me something," House said. When he didn't say anything else, Wilson looked at him curiously.

"What?" he asked.

"Now _that_ ," House said, "is what _I_ don't know."

* * *

"It's ... a cuckoo clock?"

"It doesn't look like any cuckoo clock I've seen before."

"It is not a cuckoo clock."

Both House and Wilson looked up. Soucek had come back into the room, carefully balancing a tea tray, the teapot and saucers rattling lightly in his palsied hands. Wilson rose quickly from his seat and took the silver tray.

"Thank you," Soucek said. His voice bore only the lightest trace of a Central European accent.

A breeze came up, and the embroidered cotton drapes billowed in the clean spring air. The breeze carried with it a salty sea tang, and the slim, black branches of the dogwood trees in the front yard of the tiny cottage swayed. A few of the petals of the white flowers went swirling on the wind.

"So we've determined it's not a cuckoo clock," House said, taking one of the china teacups. The porcelain was thin, a pale green Easter eggshell in his long fingers. "What is it?"

Soucek took a cautious sip of his tea.

"I do not know," he said. "Hendrik never told me."

Wilson drank a bit of his own tea as he eyed the device on the table. It certainly _looked_ like a cuckoo clock, all the way from the little trapdoor just beneath the peaked roof to the clockface on the front. The dark wood had been carved in various fantastical patterns, but the work was not as ornate or heavy as with most Black Forest clocks. Flocks of tiny birds took wing around the clock dial, startled into flight by leaping foxes. The heads and tails of the birds and foxes blended together, carved so closely so that they formed a continuous, unbroken dance of escape and pursuit. Peering closer, he thought he could discern minute human faces among the feathers and fur, their mouths frozen in silent shouts at the joy of the hunt. A faint ticking sound came from the interior of the piece, but the hands too were frozen, straight up and down, at six o'clock, and despite the marking of the hour, no tiny automaton burst through the trapdoor to whistle six cheery notes.

"You can see, Doctor, why I did not wish to entrust it the shipping companies," Soucek murmured, and Wilson switched his attention from the clock to the man serving them tea.

Dusan Soucek was old, the kind of old that, paradoxically, made it impossible to determine his age. He had the typical liver spots and white, almost translucent hair of the aged, but his brown eyes were bright and sharp, without a trace of the mental confusion that so often accompanied the long, slow slide into the twilight years.

He had greeted them at the front door before Wilson had even pressed the button for the bell, inviting the two men in with a courtly wave of one hand. Once inside, Wilson had looked curiously around as House and the old man had continued to speak.

The cottage had not been renovated to modern tastes, as so many of the small Cape May houses had been in order to appeal to summer renters. The floor was wooden, oaken planks worn smooth by years of scuffing soles. An enormous sofa, covered in some ivory cloth resembling watered silk, claimed its place of privilege by an open fireplace that looked large enough to roast a quarter steer in. The walls were lined with towering bookshelves that reached almost to the ceiling, and every volume in the shelves had obviously been cracked open and read at some time in its printed life. Area rugs -- finely-woven _kilims_ in patterns of red and black -- were scattered about. Framed photographs had been placed on the small end tables, and Wilson leaned forward to look more closely at one.

Two men smiled back at him. One was obviously their host, albeit decades younger; the other, he guessed, was House's great-uncle Hendrik. The family resemblance was clear -- the long, aquiline face, the high forehead. Although the photograph was in black-and-white, the man's eyes were light, probably a shade of blue not too dissimilar from his great-nephew's.

The picture had been taken at a happy time; the men had their arms about each other's shoulders and Dusan was holding up a small American flag in one hand, displaying it proudly for the camera. There was something vaguely _off_ to the arrangement of the stars on the flag, and it had taken Wilson a moment to realize it was because there were 48 of them, lined up neatly in eight rows of six, forming a tidy rectangle on the azure field. He straightened and looked around again.

Dusan was still talking to House, pointing variously at the additional objects around the room. Wilson followed House's gaze, taking in the sawn-down totem pole lurking in one corner, the long, yellowed length of elephant tusk in the other, the painted mummy case by the parlor door.

Wilson drew his brows together thoughtfully. The parlor was full of _things_ \-- antiques, curios, mementos -- it should have felt crowded and claustrophobic. Instead, the sunbeams pouring in through the lightly-curtained windows lent it an air of openness, of bright clarity undimmed by the darkness of the objects inside.

It was almost, Wilson had pondered, as if the _interior_ of the cottage was bigger than the _exterior_.

He'd shaken his head at the impossibility of the notion, and returned to House's side.

Their host was offering them tea.

* * *

The cuckoo clock that was not a cuckoo clock sat forgotten on the table as Dusan outlined the rest of House's inheritance.

"Anything in the house you wish," he said. "Any of the books, papers, the items that Hendrik collected over the years." He dabbed gently at his lips with one of the folded linen napkins. "There is a particularly fine sixteenth-century edition of Dioscorides' _De materia medica_ he thought you might be interested in."

"And you, Mr. Soucek?" House drawled. "What are you interested in?"

The old man shook his head. "What I was interested in is no longer here," he said. "Hendrik left me this house, and instructions for what is to be shipped to the university in Arkham. After that ... " He shrugged, seemingly disinterested in further discussion.

There was a hushed fluttering nearby, and Wilson looked around, noticing for the first time the plastic bird feeder attached to the windowsill. Several small birds, a mix of chickadees, sparrows, and yellow warblers, were perching on the feeder's edge, delicately picking millet and sunflower seeds from the clear container. The old man's expression softened.

" _Protonotaria citrea_ ," House said. " _Melospiza melodia_."

Dusan Soucek smiled. "Hendrik loved birds," he said.

* * *

"Wait, why are you turning left?"

"Because I'm not taking 9 all the way back."

"It was good enough for you before."

"That was before you told that antique-shop proprietor in Barnegat that his 1915 baseball cards were all fake."

"They were! _Genuine_ Cracker Jack cards didn't use white ink! The uniforms should've been the same color as the card stock!"

"Yeah, well, did you have to _announce_ it to the whole store?"

"How was I to know he'd get so pissed off?"

"I really think you should have stopped talking when he reached under the counter."

"Maybe you're right. Hey -- you think that was a vintage bat? It looked like hickory."

"I wouldn't know. I was too busy trying to pull you out of there. Guy's probably still waiting for us to drive back by so he can shoot out our tires."

"I don't believe this. When did you become such a scaredy-cat?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

"No. Besides, it's good you're going this way. We can stop at Vera's, see if their homemade pies are as good as they claim. Start watching for signs for Pleasant Grove."

"Pleasant _Grove?_ House, that's _miles_ out of our way!"

"So?"

"It's in the middle of _nowhere!_ We're running late already, and Soucek said not to take any detours after dark!"

"What, are you afraid you'll end up in _Blair Witch Project_? You know that was just a movie, right?"

"I'm not afraid of anything. I'm just being prudent. And we're not stopping."

"I'll get the rhubarb. You can have the apple, 'cause you're boring that way."

"Still not stopping, House."

"You think they make their whipped cream fresh or out of a can? Oh well, I guess we'll find out."

"No, we won't, because we're not stopping. Not at Vera's, not anywhere else. We're driving straight through to Princeton, and that's final."

* * *

"What do you think?" House's voice was somewhat muffled around his mouthful of pie, but he continued speaking anyway. "Too much nutmeg?"

Wilson ignored him. Instead he leaned against his padded seatback and looked around.

At this time of night, he'd expected Vera's to resemble the sparsely-populated diner in Edward Hopper's famous _Nighthawks_ \-- a way station for the lonely and lost.

This place was _busy_. They'd had to wait 20 minutes for a table to free up, a time spent mostly by Wilson looking pointedly at his watch, watching as yet more customers lined up behind them, seemingly content to wait as long as necessary. The waitresses, none of whom looked a day under fifty-five, wove through the crowded diner with a smooth, practiced efficiency. They bore plates of hamburgers, baskets of french fries, even platters of scrambled eggs and bacon ( _BREAKFASTES SERV D 24 HOURS!_ , the cheerfully misspelled sign out front had proclaimed), all balanced precariously on the huge round trays they carried on their tanned, sinewy arms.

Everything shone under the buzzing fluorescent lights -- bright chrome and red vinyl, the tall fountain glasses of milkshakes and malteds. An enormous, jangling jukebox stood against one wall, humming and clacking as it dropped real 45 rpm records onto its spinning turntable. The music could barely be heard above the laughing, chattering patrons, but Wilson thought he detected the upbeat rhythms of the Beach Boys, the crooning lull of Tony Bennett. He found himself half-expecting to spy Rob and Laura Petrie in a cozy corner, sharing a short stack with Sheriff Taylor and Barney Fife.

"Anything else for you gentlemen?"

Wilson looked up, startled. It was their waitress, a woman of imposing stature, made even taller by her towering beehive hairstyle. House had muttered something about Marge Simpson when she'd first approached, then yelped when Wilson had kicked him under the table. Her fingertips were stained yellow with nicotine, and she was wearing entirely too much red lipstick. Her nametag identified her as "Rhonda."

"Another piece of pie? Top off your coffee?"

"I think we're fine, thank you," Wilson said.

"How about some eggs? Lighthouse? French toast, with a side of sausage? Vera's special recipe, best in the valley!"

"No, that's -- " Wilson began.

"What valley would that be?" House interjected. Rhonda turned the full wattage of her smile on him.

"The Creech Valley," she said. "Just down the road a ways, where they're puttin' in the new retirement village." She winked at House. "You boys aren't ready to retire yet, are ya?"

"I ... don't think so," Wilson replied. From a few tables over, a small child began whining.

"Too bad," Rhonda said. "'Cause you fellas could darken my door anytime!" She laughed -- it was a hiccuping, braying sound, but so infectiously good-natured that Wilson found himself smiling back.

"Down, tiger," House admonished. "Rhonda here's a pistol -- way too hot for you to handle." The child's whining grew in volume, despite his mother's obvious attempts to shush him.

Rhonda grinned at the both of them. "Oh, I don't know about that," she said. "It's the quiet ones that'll surprise ya."

" -- a _Happy Meal!_ " The boy's piercing demand soared above the diner noise, and in the startled silence that followed, his mother's response was clearly audible.

"Thomas Jay Prescott!" she scolded. "If you don't behave _right now_ , I'm going to _give you to the Creeches!_ "

The boy burst into tears. Rhonda rolled her eyes.

"Terri!" she called. "Root beer float, table 10!"

"Is that some kind of secret waitress code?" House asked as the ambient restaurant din slowly resumed.

"Nope," Rhonda said. "Means we're gonna give the little rugrat a root beer float."

"Instead of to the Creeches."

The waitress shook her head. "It's just a local expression," she said. "Moms have been using it to scare their babies into sittin' up straight and flyin' right ever since I can remember."

"Obedience through terror," House muttered sourly. "Great."

Wilson winced, but Rhonda just smiled.

"Seems to work pretty well around here," she said. "Crime rate in the valley's lowest in the state." She shifted briefly, making room for Terri to get by with her precious cargo of ice cream, a vanilla island nestled in a dark brown, foamy sea. "We don't seem to have very many _repeat offenders_." Her pen hovered above her order pad.

"Sure I can't get you gentlemen anything else?"

* * *

 _This is how it happened:_

"You took a wrong turn," House said.

"I did not."

"Oh, come on. You had to -- we should have been back on the freeway by now."

" _I didn't take a wrong turn_." Wilson squinted through the windshield at the dark woods pressing in on either side. "It's like somebody ripped out all the damn signs."

"Rhonda," House said. "Rhonda did it in order to lead all the guys she takes a fancy to back to the diner so she can make them her love slaves."

Despite his growing frustration ( _where the **hell** had the road gone?_ ) Wilson smiled. In that moment there was a huge jolt from the front of the Volvo, a blow so bone-jarring that the car itself seemed to stagger like a wounded animal. Wilson instinctively threw an arm out, bracing House against the passenger seat, but in the next instant, before he could even take his foot off the accelerator, a second massive concussion sent the vehicle lurching sideways.

" _Fuck!_ " Wilson let go of House, grabbing the steering wheel with both hands. The car struggled, listing heavily to the right. _Sinking,_ Wilson thought, a flash of sudden, irrational memory replaying an ancient movie clip in his mind. _Holed below the waterline and sinking fast._ He took his foot off the gas, pumped the brake, downshifted. The Volvo drifted, its tail swinging out. _Steer into the curve._ The glove box popped open, and he caught a glimpse of white tissues scattering like tiny cranes taken to wing. Everything was moving in slow motion.

"Come _on_ ," Wilson breathed, and gripped the wheel tighter, as if by sheer force of will he could _end_ this, end it ...

 _... now_. And perhaps his force of will was stronger than he thought, because the car came to a shivering, rattling halt.

Wilson's ears were buzzing, his hands shaking. He felt light-headed and a little sick, and the way his heart was pounding he almost expected to look down and see his shirtfront bouncing back and forth like a cartoon character's. He was seized by a giddy sense of relief.

 _Not dead. I'm not dead. **We're** not dead._ A different fear took over though, when he looked at House, because in the soft green glow from the dashboard display, House appeared to _wish_ he were dead.

He was gripping his thigh with both hands, eyes squeezed shut and teeth bared in a ferocious, bright grin of pain.

" _House!_ Shit! Are you okay?" Wilson unsnapped his seat belt, twisting to get both his hands on House's shoulders even as the center console dug into his hip.

"'Mmm okay," House gritted out. "Jarred my leg ... hard ... when you hit ... whatever the fuck you hit. Deer. Bear. Elephant."

"I didn't _hit_ anything," Wilson snapped. And he hadn't, he _knew_ he hadn't -- his brother hit a deer once when they were kids, and he still remembered the horrible, sickening _thump_ of impact, the way the animal had rolled up onto the hood and they hadn't been able to see anything but brown fur smashed up against the windshield. The car, a hand-me-down Pacer, had been totaled. His dad had been furious.

"Fine," House grunted. He leaned back a little -- the pain apparently easing but his eyes still closed, and the fact that he wasn't protesting more was troubling. Wilson reached up and flipped on the dome light, and the artificial white light filled the car's interior.

"Shouldn't be looking _inside_ ," House said. "Find out what's happened _outside_."

"I didn't hit anything," Wilson mumbled again, but he switched on the high-beams nonetheless. The amped-up headlights shot out into the darkness, illuminating the painted fluorescent lane markers, the expanse of tarmac before them and the edge of the woods beyond that. No dead deer, no dead elephant, no dead anything.

 _No dead **us** ,_ Wilson thought, and felt the thrill of relief again. There was something wrong, though, something wrong with the road. They'd come to their juddering stop on the grassy shoulder; the headlights were casting long, reflective light-streams back onto the pavement, and in the middle of the streams there was a blank spot. A black hole. Wilson squinted, taking a moment to realize what he was seeing.

A pothole. A huge, _gaping_ pothole, the size, a late-night comedian would say, of Delaware. A hole big enough to ...

The sick feeling returned. "Hold on," he muttered to House, who mumbled something that sounded vaguely like "You bet" in response. Wilson's fingers fumbled at the door opener, and when he finally stepped outside he swayed for a moment on his feet.

The left side of the Volvo was fine. No scrapes, no scratches, solid and reassuring -- except for the way it was still listing, tilting noticeably to the right. Wilson took a deep breath and walked around to the other side. House's side, where the reason for the tilt was clear.

Both tires, front and back, had been blown flat by the impact with the pothole. Not only flat, but _shredded_ \-- a trail of black rubber tread led back to the hole, and the car itself rested sadly on the dented steel rims.

"Oh, _crap_ ," Wilson murmured. He toed at one of the pieces of curled-up rubber. There was a low hum, and House poked his head out of the rolled-down passenger window.

"Is it as bad as I think it is?" he asked. Wilson rubbed at the back of his neck.

"Depends on how you define 'bad,'" he replied. "If by 'bad' you mean only one flat tire, then no, it's worse."

"Ah," House said, and disappeared back inside the car. Wilson joined him a moment later, settling himself back into the driver's seat as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. A quick perusal of the tiny, backlit screen, though, told the story.

"No signal," he groaned. "Great. What _else_ can go wrong?"

"In a horror movie -- "

" _House_ ," Wilson warned. House set his jaw in a mulish line but fell silent. Wilson closed his eyes and pinched at the bridge of his nose.

"Okay," he said. "I'm going to walk back to the diner. It's only a couple of miles, they'll have landlines and I can call Triple A from there." He turned the key in the ignition, shutting off the engine. It was suddenly very quiet in the car. "Save the battery," he said, and thumbed on the hazard lights. A steady on-and-off, on-and-off blinking began. He handed the keys to House. "If somebody happens by before I get back you can flag them down."

"And what am I supposed to do while you're being Dudley Do-right?"

"Oh, I don't know." Wilson smirked as he started out of the car again. "Maybe put your seat back and dream about being Rhonda's love slave?"

House shuddered in a mock expression of horror.

"Seriously," Wilson chuckled. "Take a Vicodin and relax. This'll take a while."

* * *

Wilson had decided, after a great deal of thought, that he didn't like walking in the woods at night. It was dark, for one thing, and although that shouldn't have been a surprise, it was. He was used to nights full of artificial light -- the hospital parking lot, a grocery store, his apartment, all of them illuminated by friendly, _safe_ light. Out here the only light was from the stars, and there was damn little of that. He stumbled, and cursed softly before regaining his footing and trudging on.

There were things in the woods too -- things he could hear, scrabbling around in the underbrush. Still, he'd managed to keep from using the little emergency flashlight he was carrying until after one of those things had actually squealed from close by. He had flicked it on then, shining its small, weak beam into the woods.

A pair of golden eyes had looked back at him, seemingly suspended about a foot off the ground.

Wilson had gasped -- a short, sharp inhalation of breath. "Scat," he had commanded, in what he had hoped was an intimidating tone. "Go on." He had waved his arms. " _Get out of here!_ "

The eyes had blinked at him, then disappeared, and he'd stood for a long moment before turning and walking on.

He saw a few more things after that -- broken bottles, wooden fenceposts strung with wire, delineating the boundary of someone's property. There were never any gates, though, and after a while he stopped looking. He found only one signpost, dark and rusty with age, its letters barely visible through the flaking corrosion -- _CREECHVILLE PIKE_.

"A fine place to raise your kids up," he murmured.

He was very glad to see the approaching headlights a few minutes later. He switched on the flashlight, stepped forward, and waved his arms in the air.

* * *

"A little late to be out for a walk, ain't it, Mister?"

The man behind the wheel of the pickup truck grinned down at him. Wilson smiled back. The truck was red, one of those big extended-cab models, and behind the dark-tinted windows he could see the vague shadows of other occupants in the back seat.

"It sure is," Wilson replied. "My car broke down a couple of miles back. I wonder if you could -- "

The cab door opened, and Wilson took an instinctive step back. The driver chuckled.

"S'okay," he said. "We've been on the road awhile ourselves. Dan's just gotta stretch his legs a bit."

The man who emerged from the darkness certainly looked as if he might need to stretch his legs -- he was tall and lanky, dressed in a red-and-black checked flannel shirt, his blue jeans tucked carefully into brown leather work boots. His short brown hair and blue eyes made him a virtual twin for the pickup's driver. He smiled and nodded apologetically at Wilson, then strode off into the night.

"I was just wondering -- " Wilson started again.

Another cab door opened, this time on the opposite, passenger's side. Wilson watched as the dome light that should have gone on stayed dark.

"Uh," Wilson said. He dragged his gaze back to the driver.

The driver was still smiling at him. This time, however, it was from over the barrel of a gun.

Wilson swallowed, his throat suddenly ash-dry. A twig cracked behind him, and he flinched as the cold muzzle of another gun pressed into the tender patch of skin beneath his right ear.

"Are you armed?" Dan whispered. "Tell me the truth, now."

"No," Wilson said. It was very hard to speak, and he struggled to keep his voice from cracking.

"The sheep never are," the pickup driver said. "That's why they're sheep." His gun hadn't wavered.

The other man had come around the front of the truck -- he appeared to be about House's age, and he too was tall and brown-haired.

"Now, Zeb," he said calmly. "You know as well as I do that the sheep are truly blessed, for they are the ones who see God before the rest of us. We are merely the shepherds." He raised his voice. "Benjamin? Come on, let's wrap this up and get going."

Wilson stood frozen as yet another man climbed down from the cab. He looked younger than the other three, but had the same coloring and lanky build.

 _Clown car,_ Wilson thought. _How many brothers does it take to fill one up?_ He was aware that he had begun to sweat.

"Look," he said softly. "If it's -- I have money -- my wallet -- just take it -- "

"Money is the root of all that's evil," the oldest man said. His tone was even and matter-of-fact, as if he'd just stated that the earth was round or that black was the absence of light.

"Hold out your hands," Dan said. He pressed the gun a little harder into Wilson's head.

Wilson put his hands out, and watched numbly as Benjamin tied his wrists together with a length of what looked like plain nylon clothesline rope. He worked quickly and efficiently, his tongue sticking out just a little as he cinched the loops tight and pulled the last knot tight. When he was finished he stepped back. Dan stepped forward, taking hold of the dangling end of the rope. He tugged on it like a leash.

"Come on," he said. "Sheep ride in the back."

* * *

Dan's words echoed in Wilson's mind as he lay on his side, jouncing uncomfortably on the hard steel truck bed.

The brothers had finished tying him up with the rest of the clothesline, roping his ankles together, securing his bound wrists to his bent knees, until in the end he had resembled nothing so much as a trussed-up rodeo calf. Then they'd spread the weatherproof tarp cover over the truck bed and snapped it down, plunging Wilson into a warm, close darkness.

He'd felt the brothers get back in the truck, the doors slamming shut one by one. They'd kept the engine running the whole time, and he slid back a few inches as the driver gunned the truck forward.

Wilson tried pulling at his bonds. He tried shouting, but his voice was lost in the roar of the big motor. He doubted anyone could hear it beyond the bed cover anyway.

He doubted there was anyone around to hear it.

 _At least,_ he thought, _at least these crazy fucks didn't find House._

***** 

The truck sped past the crippled Volvo, its caution lights still blinking forlornly in the night.

The Creech brothers didn't spare it a second glance.

[Part Two](http://nightdog-barks.livejournal.com/1020902.html#cutid1)


	3. </b>  The Sins of the Fathers (3/4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This section is 4,064 words.

_**_House_ fic: The Sins of the Fathers (3/4)**_  
 **TITLE:** The Sins of the Fathers (3/4)  
 **AUTHOR:** [](http://nightdog-writes.livejournal.com/profile)[**nightdog_writes**](http://nightdog-writes.livejournal.com/)  
 **SUMMARY:** This section is 4,064 words.

  
 **Part Three**

  
House cursed softly as a fresh lance of pain shot up his leg. He'd been cursing for the last ten miles, or however many miles he had really gone in this for-shit rental car.

He had cursed the road, so full of the now all-too-familiar potholes. He had cursed his great-uncle, for having the temerity to die and the stupidly altruistic impulse to leave him things, things that had needed to be picked up and were now rattling around in a peeling cardboard box in the trunk. He had cursed Wilson, for going and disappearing when he clearly needed to be right here, writing House a new scrip for Vicodin. And most of all, he cursed Pleasant Grove Rent-A-Car, which had given him what was obviously a vehicle with a seriously defective odometer. Normally that wouldn't be something that would bother him -- after all, as long as a car _ran_ , it was serviceable, but this time, the odometer was something he _needed_.

 _"Keep driving west on the Pike,"_ Rhonda had said, and that was all well and good, but how was he supposed to know when he'd _gone too far?_ He'd been driving for what his watch said had been two hours, and the damn odometer hadn't ticked over even once. According to the road map and its tiny inch-to-mile markers, he should have passed the turn-off for Trenton forty minutes ago, and yet all he had seen was the same boring New Jersey countryside rolling by.

He cursed New Jersey for good measure. He hadn't ever expected to be here this long -- he'd thought that after he had worked for Cuddy for a while, she'd see him for what he truly was and fire him, and off he'd go somewhere else, farther away, and then somewhere farther away than that. Well, she _had_ seen him for what he really was -- someone who made everyone around him worse -- and she'd kept him.

House still hadn't figured out what that meant. He was still pondering the implications of that, when the road took a sudden curve. Instinctively, he slowed down, then blinked.

He was on the main street of some small township, and on his left, bulldozers were roaring and men in hard hats were shouting on the construction site of what appeared to be new condos going up.

Condos ... or a retirement village.

* * *

The door to the toolshed clanged open. Wilson backed away, cursing the designer of his prison -- there were no corners to take refuge in.

"Come on now, don't be shy," Zeb sang out. "Time for your second cleansing!"

Wilson searched the area frantically for something -- anything -- that he could use as a weapon, but there were only the flimsy water bottles and the telephone books. The key rasped in the padlock, and he looked up, panting.

Three of them. Two more looming in the toolshed's doorway. _Damn_ it. He tried to swallow down his fear as the first two men -- Zeb and Dan -- stepped into the pen. At least he could put up a fight before they shot any more of that crap down his throat. Wilson raised his fists, trying to remember everything he could about every schoolyard fight he'd ever been in.

He needn't have bothered. Too late, he saw Zeb's right hand come up, holding a tiny, bright red canister.

 _Cigarette lighter,_ Wilson's brain said, and then Zeb pressed the button trigger, and it wasn't a cigarette lighter at all.

The stream of volatile pepper spray was right on target, and Wilson reeled back, his hands to his face, choking and gasping and crying for air. Through a blur of tears, he was only vaguely aware of the two brothers dragging his hands away from his eyes and tying his wrists behind his back, pulling the knots tight with insulting ease.

" _You sons of bitches_ ," Wilson gasped out. " _Goddamn sons of bitches_."

"You hold that thought, sheep," Dan said. "Keep it up and I'll make sure this one hurts." He patted Wilson on the buttocks. "Ready in here!" he called out. Their strong hands gripped his shoulders and biceps as Ben and Asher entered the cage, hauling some bulky wooden structure between them. Wilson snuffled in a sobbing, phlegmy breath and tried to understand what he was seeing. His eyes were still tearing, trying to flush the capsaicin from the delicate tissues, and he blinked rapidly to clear them as best he could.

It was a waist-high sawhorse, only a couple of feet long, padded on top and at both ends with layer upon layer of what appeared to be industrial-strength plastic bubble wrap. It was the kind of thing kids might set up in a suburban backyard and use as a makeshift pommel horse.

One of the brothers gave him a hard shove forward; Wilson stumbled and grunted as his abdomen made painful contact with the butt end of the padded sawhorse. The rest of the brothers crowded around him.

"Bend over," Zeb growled.

* * *

It was easy to find the county courthouse -- it was, unsurprisingly, located in the town square. House got out of the car slowly, favoring his right leg, allowing the muscles to stretch before he put any weight on it. He leaned on his cane, inspecting the building before him.

It was a typical small-town courthouse, of the kind found all over the U.S., built in a vaguely Greek style of whitewashed brick. The four tall columns in front provided shelter for a graceful portico, and a square bell tower sprouted from the slate-tiled roof. A single small window underneath the bell gave the structure the look of an oddly cheerful white cuckoo clock. Men and women were coming and going from the double doors that served as the main entrance; they carried briefcases and messenger bags, and looked entirely intent on their own tasks. Everything -- and everyone -- looked perfectly, distressingly normal.

"This had better be worth it," House muttered, and started towards the courthouse.

* * *

On some deep level, Wilson was aware that he was whining, the breath rasping in and out of his lungs in panicked gasps.

He had refused to bend, and so someone ( _Dan? Zeb? it didn't matter_ ) had grabbed the back of his neck and forced him down, at which point more of the ubiquitous nylon clothesline had been produced. The loops of rope had gone around his back, over his already-bound arms, and he'd been tied securely to the padded horse. His left cheek was pressed into the plastic bubble wrap, and he could hear it pop and crinkle as he whined and fought to pull himself free. Someone slapped his buttocks, hard, and the men laughed as Wilson jerked and cried out.

" _God_ ," he moaned.

"See how the _lamb_ changes his tune," Zeb mocked. Wilson gritted his teeth and kicked backwards, and was rewarded when someone yelped.

"Looks like you got a wolf in sheep's clothing, Dan," one of the men taunted.

"Yeah? Tie his legs so he can't kick. He'll be a lamb again in just a minute, beggin' for us to stop," Dan muttered. "Asher, hang that bag up. Ben, get over here."

"Me again? I _hate_ this part!"

"Hate it all you want -- it's gotta be done." Dan leaned down, and Wilson could feel the man's warm breath on his ear even as rough hands roped his ankles to the sawhorse's supports. "I hope you like the taste of plastic," he hissed. "'Cause we're gonna shove this tube so far up your ass it's gonna tickle your tonsils on the way out."

* * *

After thirty minutes, House was still searching for Giles Longacres' office. He supposed he should have asked at the information desk on the first floor, but he'd been so surprised at the lack of metal detectors, armed guards, and generalized paranoia that he had simply continued on into the depths of the building. No one had even asked to check his cane to see if it contained a sword, a gun, or poisoned blowdarts. So instead he had wandered further and further into the courthouse, past offices full of busy clerks, down hallways that crooked and crossed and ended in brick-walled dead ends. The late afternoon sunlight slanted in long beams across the creaking wooden floors, but when he turned a corner the light seemed to be coming from the _opposite_ direction.

He got on one of the elevators, and frowned at the row of numbered buttons that informed him there was a fourth floor, when his view from the outside had shown him only two, plus the attic. He pressed the button.

The elevator began to rise.

* * *

"Don't do this," Wilson pleaded. "Please don't do this."

The latex-gloved hands on his buttocks tightened despite his efforts to clench shut. A stiff finger, slick with lubricant, poked inexpertly at his anus. Wilson grunted and redoubled his efforts to bar the questing finger.

"Y'know," Zeb drawled, "you keep being all uncooperative, and we might have to kill you now instead of letting you live for a few more hours because we'll have stuck this enema tube right through your colon."

"I _know_ that," Wilson panted. "I'm a doctor, damn it, that's why I don't want you to do this."

The probing finger stopped, as did all conversation.

"You're a doctor?" It was Ben's voice, and the young man suddenly sounded very uncertain. Wilson felt a flare of hope within his chest.

"I'm an oncologist," he said. "A cancer doctor. I'm an M.D., my name is Wilson. James Wilson. I work at -- "

"Shut up," a new voice said, and Wilson's mouth went dry with fear. Elder brother.

"I don't know," Asher said slowly. "A doctor ... "

"Doctors aren't any different from the rest of the flock," the elder said.

"Yeah, but Pa never brought in any doctors to sacrifice."

"That's because our father is set in his ways. The old ways."

"The old ways have worked pretty good so far," Asher mused.

"But they can be even better." The elder's voice was smooth, soothing as honey. "Come, brothers. Let us do this -- once started, the preparations must be carried through. What is the worst that can happen?"

"No," Wilson said. "Hey -- please, no." The family ignored him.

"The worst that can happen is that this blessed lamb will see God, and no material benefit will come to us. How is that a _bad_ thing, as long as one lost soul is redeemed?"

"Well ... "

Wilson began to struggle again, straining against his bonds. " _No!_ " he shouted. "Don't listen to him!"

"Quiet the lamb," the elder said, "and listen to the counsel of your own heart. The holy spirit will tell you that this is the right path -- set your feet upon it, and we will travel it together."

Wilson's frantic protests were stifled as someone stuffed a handkerchief in his mouth and secured it with another short length of rope.

"Excellent, my brothers," the elder said. "This is the way of the Lord."

* * *

The elevator doors had opened onto ... a floor. It was the fourth floor, House supposed, although there had been no indicators, no directory of offices as there had been on the other floors. There was only a hallway, stretching out before him, with a single office at the end, and letters painted in gold leaf on the opaque glass of the office door.

He made his way slowly down the hall; his leg, which had stopped aching for a while during his search, was flaring up again. His knuckles were white around his cane when he finally stopped in front of the door.

 _GILES LONGACRE_ , the golden letters read. _SHERIFF CREECH COUNTY N.J._

House pushed the door open.

The man behind the desk looked up.

"Dr. House," he said. "I've been waiting for you."

***** 

House wasn't sure what he had really been expecting, but he couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that it wasn't _this_.

The office at the end of the hall was bright, a large window admitting the last of the setting sunlight. Bookshelves lined one wall, overfilled with printed volumes, journals, and discarded newspapers. A globe in a wooden frame stood in one corner; above it, on the wall, was a yellowed print of an antique map of the state. The office's owner, a man dressed in a plain khaki uniform, sat typing away at a trim laptop. House immediately tried to ascertain his age -- and failed. Somehow he looked both older than House and younger than Wilson. He had a broad, open face, a dash of freckles across his nose, and his wavy reddish-blond hair looked like it was overdue for a cut. As House watched, the man ran one hand through it, causing patches of it to stick up like a ruffled pelt of fox fur. After a moment the man punched "enter" on his keyboard and sat back in his chair.

"So what brings you to Creech County, Doctor?"

"Didn't Rhonda tell you?" House sniped back.

"Rhonda Ekster told me many things," Longacre replied mildly. "But I'd like to hear your version."

"Really? Because I think we should just cut to the chase." In the back of his mind House could hear Wilson yelling at him, the way he always did when House deliberately baited an authority figure. Like a powerful hospital benefactor. Like a Princeton police detective. Well, too bad. Wilson had always been the one to smooth things over, to make concessions. House wanted to _find_ Wilson so he could tell him that, tell him what an idiot he was sometimes. The problem was, House had the sneaking suspicion he was running out of time.

"Then tell me your version of the chase, Dr. House. Who do you think is leading the hunt?"

House scowled. It was clear Longacre wanted House to show his own cards first, and was obviously prepared to wait him out. Fine. House would lay out his cards, and if they turned out to be aces and eights, then that was the other guy's problem.

"I think there's something funny going on in Creech County."

Longacre's eyebrows rose. "Something funny?"

"Only I'm not laughing, because real people are disappearing." House shifted in his chair and leaned forward. "It's like I told your pal Rhonda -- and isn't she a little old for you? -- the answers are there for anybody who looks, only nobody's looking. And nobody's looking because the people who are disappearing are the ones nobody really wants to find." He paused; Longacre was watching him calmly.

"Rhonda was touting the low crime rate here," House continued. "So I did a little research -- it's amazing what resources branch libraries have access to these days." He fished a piece of notepaper from his jacket pocket and unfolded it on Longacre's desk, smoothing out the creases.

"Marcus Cantley," he read. "Frank McGrath. Randall Godley. Ironic last name, that, considering he was caught diddling his neighbor's seven-year-old daughter." He refolded the paper. "And the first two? A rapist and a murderer. All apprehended, as the saying goes, in the act. Convicted by a jury of their peers. Sentenced to life in prison, no parole. Except they didn't _go_ to a state prison. They stayed _here_ , in Creechville, in the county jail." House's hands turned, a quick flick of motion. The folded paper vanished. Longacre's lips quirked up at the sleight of hand.

"And then they died," House said, settling back in his chair. "Of tuberculosis. All of them. Not so unusual -- TB is a continuing problem in the American prison population -- except here's where somebody slipped up, because there are no burial records for them, not with the township, not with the state, not with the Feds. So I did a little more checking. James Tate, 1973, killed his entire family and the innocent bystander who tried to stop him. William Pepper, 1968, torched his girlfriend's house, only she and her mother were inside at the time. Tony 'Boom Boom' Rattles, 1947, tried to rob the First National Bank but ended up killing all his hostages instead. They disappeared too. It's a continuing pattern, Longacre. And those are just a few cases -- six or seven or more, every year, it's been going on since ... well, I stopped when the microfiche did, at 1882." He fixed Longacre with a steady gaze.

"How long _has_ it been going on?"

Giles Longacre regarded him for a long moment, then he shook his head and laughed softly.

"You're as good as I'd been told, Dr. House. And as for your question -- how long do _you_ think it's been going on?"

House eased out a breath. "Rhonda said you were the current _Schout_. I'd say if you've got any van Tienhovens in your family line, it's been going on for a hell of a long time."

Longacre's smile grew.

"Cornelis van Tienhoven. The first _Schout_ of New Netherland, appointed by Peter Stuyvesant. A ... distant cousin. My family name was originally Langaarde; it was changed during the First World War when the local _patriots_ couldn't be bothered to distinguish between Dutch and German names."

"And the 'Giles'?"

"Mom was a Tolkien fan," Longacre said wryly. "Did her dissertation at Columbia on all his lesser works. I suppose I'm lucky -- otherwise I might have ended up being named Frodo."

"What about Rhonda? And Vera, for that matter, assuming there really is a Vera? Are they some kind of _Schouts_ too? Or are they Nazgul?"

"It depends on who's telling the story, don't you think?" Longacre leaned far back in his office chair, stretching his arms and lacing his fingers behind his head. The khaki fabric pulled tight over his broad shoulders. "What would you do, Dr. House, if I didn't tell you? Would you go to the police in Pleasant Grove? In Trenton? Would you call the newspapers? CNN?" His expression was placid, but there was a watchfulness in his eyes that belied his seeming calm.

House hesitated, but only for a moment. There was a test here, he knew it. Luckily, House was _good_ at tests.

"No," he said. "Because if the story's what I think it is, nobody would believe me."

Longacre didn't reply. Instead he turned his head a fraction and looked out the window.

The office was silent. From somewhere very close by, just outside the office door, House heard an odd, soft _snuffling_ sound, as if some unimaginably large creature was on the prowl. Down the hall, a door slammed, and then there was a distinctive clattering, the _rat-a-tat-tat_ of an old-fashioned manual typewriter, the kind with a real cloth ribbon and keys that leapt up and left bold black letters like animal tracks in the snow.

The doorknob jiggled. House forced himself to sit still, rolling his cane slowly between his palms.

"Rhonda Ekster is a _schepen_ ," Longacre said suddenly. "A ... magistrate, is the closest English word." He hadn't looked around. "One of many on the _schepenbank_. A few are inherited posts, but the majority of them are democratically elected to the office by the citizens of the county in a very _American_ secret ballot."

"So secret there's no mention of it in the official history of the town or the town charter." House cocked his head. "Unless, of course, there's a _secret_ charter."

Longacre shook his head. "No secret covenants, Dr. House. Just an ... oral tradition, if you will, that's been in place -- and served us well -- for a very long time." He turned back around in his chair and clasped his hands together, resting them on the desktop. "At any given time there are thirty-six _schepenen_ , men and women, fulfilling their service to the community. Not all of them live here -- there are magistrates in Trenton, in Paterson, in Camden -- until quite recently, there was even one in Cape May."

Whoever was typing was still at it; the rickety-tick clack and rattle had continued unabated throughout Longacre's narrative.

"And their service to the community ... "

"Is to vote. On extreme cases, in which no purpose would be served by housing and feeding a monster for the rest of his -- or her -- natural life in the state or federal prison system."

"I was wrong," House rasped out. "Rhonda Ekster's not really a waitress. She's Shirley Jackson."

Longacre's lips quirked upwards. "We don't stone anyone to death here, Doctor."

"No," House said. "You don't have to. You just give them to the Creeches."

"They perform a valuable public service."

"How? By _murdering_ the people nobody else wants to deal with?"

"You call it murder. We call it justice. The Creeches call it ... something else."

"Then that makes even less sense. Wilson's not a criminal."

Longacre unclasped his hands; he sighed and wearily dragged one of them down his face.

"I know," he said. "It's Joseph Creech. He's the problem."

The typewriter stopped clattering as someone (some _thing?_ ) hit the carriage return lever. The machine's bell sounded with a loud, tinny _ding!_

House jumped.

* * *

"I don't want to do this again," Ben said. "Can somebody else do this next time?" A few feet away, their captive was continuing to struggle weakly against his bonds and make low whimpering sounds through his gag. A fetid, horrible smell filled the tool shed.

Dan snorted. "You're just resentful," he commented, "because Joe won't let you put Celine Dion on your iPod."

"No, I'm _resentful_ because I'm sick of having the sheep crap on me." Ben finished looping up the rubber tubing and tucked it away it away into the leather satchel. "Do we know where we're planting this one?"

"Northeast cornerstone," Zeb replied. "Geezer central."

A thin, tight line formed between Ben's eyebrows. "Don't call it that. The retirement community's going to be a godsend to the town."

Dan arched an eyebrow of his own at his brother. "You sound just like father."

"Why not? It's true."

"Of course it's true." Both men looked up even as a low moan of terror escaped from their bound victim.

"Of course it's true," Joseph repeated. "The Lord blesses those who seek to please Him -- the continuing prosperity of this valley is proof enough." He beamed at them. "Just think of the bounty that is sure to result when we send an angel of mercy to God, rather than a servant of Lucifer! Already, just from taking this lamb's feet from that road of darkness and setting him on the path to eternal righteousness, there are new township plans in the works. A new housing development on the west side! A new retail complex on the east! New businesses and jobs for the people under our care!"

"Maybe we'll get a Starbucks," Ben mused.

"Perhaps. And it will all be because we have struck out on our own path, and cast off our father's chains." Joseph's voice grew low. "New times call for new ways," he said, "and new ways call for new blood. Now, let's clean up in here and prepare for our first sacrifice, as the new shepherds of Creech County."

* * *

"So you're saying the _schepenbank_ \-- the magistrates -- knew nothing about this."

It was full dark now outside the little office, and from across the way House could see the night lights of downtown Creechville, such as they were. In the building across the street, the harsh white of fluorescent cubicle lights was replaced by the softer glow of the yellow bulbs outlining the structure's exterior.

The typewriter had finally fallen silent, and there'd been no more snuffling noises at the door.

Longacre shook his head. "We knew Joe was getting restless, wanting to strike out on his own, maybe take some of his brothers with him. I guess none of us saw it coming to a head like this."

"And now that it has? Isn't this the part where you pick up the phone and order the Creeches to stop this little ritual? Y'know, before they _murder an innocent man?_ "

"It's not that easy, Doctor. There's no phone service out at the old Creech place, and even if there was, Joe wouldn't listen to me." He pushed his chair back, his expression grim. "There's only one person who can talk to Joe, and it's time to find him."

[Part Four](http://nightdog-barks.livejournal.com/1021261.html#cutid1)


	4. </b>  The Sins of the Fathers (4/4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This section is 3,826 words.

_**_House_ fic: The Sins of the Fathers (4/4)**_  
 **TITLE:** The Sins of the Fathers (4/4)  
 **AUTHOR:** [](http://nightdog-writes.livejournal.com/profile)[**nightdog_writes**](http://nightdog-writes.livejournal.com/)  
 **SUMMARY:** This section is 3,826 words.

  
 **Part Four**

  
House was lost.

They had left the sheriff's office, Longacre opening the door to reveal ... nothing. No inquisitive, snuffling creature, no spectral hand on the doorknob, no indication of any other hallway occupants.

No other _doors_ in the hallway. No other offices.

 _Then where,_ House couldn't help thinking as he and Longacre walked to the elevator, _was that typewriter, and who was the typist?_ He'd chased that thought around in his head all the way down in the elevator, through the courthouse lobby, and out into the parking lot.

It was the first time House had been in a police cruiser since the whole Tritter mess. Then, and every previous time he'd been in a cop car, he'd been sitting in the back, usually with his hands cuffed behind him. Now he found himself up front, watching the asphalt unroll before him in the cruiser's lights as Longacre chewed stoically on a stick of Juicy Fruit. He preferred this view. But he was still lost; he thought he'd seen all the highways and byways in what was evidently Hell's half-acre, but absolutely none of this looked familiar.

He was almost ready to admit defeat and start looking for road signs depicting the worm Ourobouros devouring its tail when Longacre flipped on the turn signal and pulled smoothly into a driveway.

* * *

It was a perfectly ordinary house -- a trim, split-level ranch, indistinguishable from any one of tens of thousands of other suburban New Jersey houses. What wasn't so ordinary was the old man on a riding lawnmower, its twin headlights knifing through the darkness as it trundled steadily across the front yard. The man's voice carried over the roar of the motor, and House recognized the tune immediately as he and Longacre stepped out of the car.

 _"Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,  
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves!"_

The mower turned, following the embankment of a flower bed. The driver spotted House and Longacre; lifting a hand from the steering wheel, he gave a cheery wave and continued to sing.

 _"Sowing in the sunshine, sowing in the shadows,  
Fearing neither clouds nor winter’s chilling breeze;  
By and by the harvest, and the labor ended,  
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves."_

"Mr. Creech!" The mower putt-putted along; it was clear the elderly operator couldn't hear Longacre's voice over the mechanized stutter of the engine.

Longacre cupped his hands around his mouth. "Mr. _Creech!"_

 _"Going forth with weeping, sowing for the Master -- "_

 _  
**"Jacob!"**   
_

The old man waved again, and House's ears rang in the sudden silence as Jacob Creech brought the mower to a halt and switched off the motor.

"Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, boys," he called out. "Giles, what brings you to Mount Nebo this fine night?"

"Mount Nebo?" House muttered as he and Longacre approached the old man. The scent of the new-mown grass surrounded them.

"Name of the subdivision," Longacre replied. "Joe wanted to call it Golgotha Estates, but Jacob told him the label wouldn't sell."

"The wisdom of the patriarchs," House mumbled, and up close, the old guy _did_ look something like a woodcut illustration of a Biblical patriarch -- if Biblical patriarchs had been given to wearing Dickie coveralls and a John Deere gimme cap. His feathery white beard was like spun silk, and the green cap was pulled low over twinkling blue eyes.

 _Father Abraham,_ House thought, _or a demented Santa Claus. Take your pick._ The comparison ended there, though, as Longacre spoke.

"Mr. Creech," he said, "I'm afraid your boy Joseph has gotten in some pretty hot water this time."

The old man's face fell; he sighed as he took off his cap and rubbed wearily at his forehead with the back of his hand.

"I knew it," he muttered. Aided by Longacre's steadying grip, he eased himself off the mower saddle and stood up, wincing a little as he stretched to relieve the tight muscles in his back. "Come on, boys," he said. "Let's continue this conversation over some fresh coffee and cake."

* * *

The cup was warm in House's hands; he sipped cautiously but apparently the Patriarch of the Fathers was all about fresh-roast beans rather than Folger's. Behind him, a short woman of heroic girth bustled about the kitchen; she wore a bright red apron and a plain cotton kerchief covered her fine grey hair.

"Here you go, dear," she said, setting a small container of cream on the kitchen table. House stared at it. The little porcelain cow grinned back up at him -- its curved tail was the handle, and the liquid was dispensed through the cow's mouth. He looked away, and allowed his gaze to take in the kitchen again.

Longacre, conversing quietly with Jacob Creech. Mrs. Creech ( _Billie, the old man had called her_ ) stirring an iron kettle of bubbling _something_ on the stove. A few potted plants in the window -- an African violet, a kalanchoe, a wandering Jew. Kitschy tictac on the walls -- paintings of comical dogs, wide-eyed children, a frame of embroidery that read _WORLD'S BEST MOM_. House scanned the walls again, squinting this time.

"What are you doing?" Longacre, beside him now, murmuring softly.

"Looking for the Norman Rockwell calendar that says 1958," House muttered. "It's got to be here somewhere."

"I knew I should have sent the boy to Egypt," Jacob rumbled, forestalling Longacre's response.

House turned around in his chair, ignoring the porcelain cow and Longacre.

 _"Egypt?"_

"Luxor," Longacre supplied. "The Luxor, in Las Vegas."

"Faro Enterprises wanted him," Jacob continued. "They were going to hire him to run their new Eye of the Needle Casino, but when he came to me asking my advice, I counseled against it." He blew out a soft breath as Billie patted him on the arm. "I made a terrible mistake."

"You know," House growled, "as much as I'd love to hear this _touching_ family story, I'd love it even more if we could get a move on, and ... oh, I don't know ... maybe _rescue my friend?"_

"House," Longacre hissed, but House was on his feet, his cane planted firmly on the floor as he leaned on it with both hands.

"I don't care," House gritted out. "I don't care about Luxor, or the Sphinx, or the Twelve Tribes or the sins of the fathers or pillars of salt in the wilderness. I _want_ my friend back!"

Jacob looked at him for a long moment, then nodded slowly.

"You were right, Giles," he said. "Dr. House will make an excellent addition."

"Addition?" House's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"

"Later," Longacre said. "Let's concentrate on getting your friend back."

* * *

The door of the toolshed creaked open, but Wilson didn't look up. He'd spent the rest of the night lying with his face pressed to the floor after Ben and Zeb had untied him from the sawhorse. They hadn't bothered untying his hands, though, and so he'd lain on his side, feeling his guts twist and his bowels cramp for what seemed like endless hours.

"Sheep! Come on, time for your shearing!"

Wilson didn't move. "Mrs. Leibowitz," he whispered.

"What's he saying?"

A sharp-toed boot nudged Wilson in the ribs. He tried to edge away but his limbs refused to respond.

"Doesn't matter." The inquiring boot disappeared; strong hands slipped under his armpits and hauled him to his feet. Wilson's head lolled brokenly as his stomach rebelled, but there was nothing to bring up.

He was drained -- completely empty inside, and clean on the outside where he'd been hosed down.

"This pen stinks," someone groused.

"We'll wash it down when we get back," someone else replied. Wilson tried to lift his head to see who, but it was too much effort. "And that'll be soon enough."

The hands grasping his arms swung him around; Wilson blinked and swallowed down another wave of nausea.

In the east, the first pale light was beginning to glow against the night sky.

* * *

 _"I fell in to a burning ring of fire,"_ Johnny Cash sang lustily on the pickup's radio. The brothers bounced along on the rutted dirt road; their sacrificial sheep, secured in the truck's bed, was silent, which suited the men just fine.

"Won't be long now," Zeb had assured the sheep, whose eyes had widened at the sight of the coils of extra rope and the gallon can of extra-virgin olive oil already stored in the back of the truck. He hadn't said anything, though, just before they'd lifted him off his feet and shoved him onto the cold metal.

"A goodly sign," Dan had said. "Sheep are sheep, and in the end they always accept that."

Dan was driving; he looked straight ahead, and every now and then he tapped his index finger on the steering wheel in time with the music. Ben, sitting next to him, tried to tune him out. He concentrated on not listening and instead ran his own forefinger across the surface of the long wooden box resting on his lap.

The box was a few inches over a foot long; constructed of some dark, finely-grained timber, its top bore a multitude of carved words, intertwined with curling vines and leaves and the faces of small, watchful animals. No one living could read the meaning of the words, but it didn't matter. The box wasn't important -- it was what was inside that counted.

 _Just like the human heart,_ Ben thought.

 _"And it burns, burns, burns -- the ring of fi-yer, that ring of fire,"_ Dan sang, his sturdy baritone twanging through the truck cab. Ben gripped the wooden box more tightly.

"Can't we listen to something else?" he muttered. "You know I hate that country shit."

Dan laughed. "Now that," he said, "is _blasphemy_ , little brother."

* * *

The building site was quiet, a huge hole gouged out of the earth that seemed to glow under the spotlights. Bulldozers, steam shovels, excavation equipment stood in suspended animation, waiting for their crews to return and bring them back to roaring, snorting life. Down in the hole, more spotlights cast a hard white light, the harsh illumination of the very hottest day in high summer, and the shadows were starkly black against the unforgiving light. Ben could see his other brothers, the ones who'd ridden in Joseph's Prius, waiting next to the little silver car.

Dan braked smoothly and brought the pickup to a halt. He shifted into park -- _"But I shot a man in Reno, just to -- "_ Johnny Cash sang, and then fell silent as Dan turned off the ignition. The engine ticked quietly in the sudden hush, and then Ben heard the _snap-shhhhshhh_ of his brothers' seatbelts from the back of the cab.

"All right then," Dan said, and unsnapped his own belt. "Let's do this. Not much time till daylight."

* * *

 _Damn sheep_ , Ben thought as he rubbed resentfully at the rising bruise on his elbow. His brother had been wrong this time; the sheep _hadn't_ accepted his fate and had started kicking the moment they'd pulled off the tarp and lowered the bed gate.

He'd managed to keep them all away for a good two minutes, shouting and lashing out with his feet before Dan and Reuben had been able to climb into the truck and hold him still so that Zeb and Ben could tie his ankles together. They'd slid him out and dumped him unceremoniously on the ground.

"Son of a _bitch_ ," Asher had grunted; blood had welled from between his fingers as he'd clutched at his nose, where one of the sheep's heels had caught him.

By then the sheep was cursing, still screaming for help, and Dan had peeled off a strip of duct tape and slapped it over the sheep's mouth. While there was no chance of anyone coming to the sheep's aid, it was still annoying as hell.

The ride down in the industrial elevator had been quiet; the sheep had tried to twist free one last time when the door had opened, but Dan and Zeb had simply tightened their grip as they'd dragged him to the stone.

The cornerstone was a square of solid granite -- a massive chunk of rock the size of a kitchen table, planed smooth on top and set with temporary ringbolts on the sides. The sheep made little muffled sounds as he was forced down, his bound ankles lifted and his legs swiveled sideways so that he was flat on his belly atop the rock.

Asher and Reuben worked quickly, tossing the extra lengths of rope across the sheep's back and legs, feeding the ends through the bolts, pulling the ropes taut and tying them off in secure knots.

Ben flexed his elbow and craned his neck a little to try and see how bad the bruise was going to be.

"Excellent," Joseph murmured as he surveyed his brothers' handiwork. Ben watched as Dan, still panting a little from his exertions, checked to make sure the construction boss had left the portable mixer in place and bags of cement nearby.

The sheep was still struggling, straining against the ropes, and Ben took a silent moment to rehearse what was to come -- the anointment, the entreaties to the Lord to accept this humble offering, the knife ...

Ben looked around. The wooden case lay open on a dusty workbench, and the eight-inch blade gleamed silver under the bright lights.

A shadow seemed to waver, just at the very edge of Ben's sight line. He narrowed his eyes, but nothing else moved, and after a moment he redirected his attention back to his brothers.

This was a solemn time, after all -- the sheep's blood would nourish this building ground, his body, buried in concrete below the cornerstone, would strengthen the bricks and mortar, and stabilize the structure to its very core.

It would be as it had always been -- the sacrifice of one, to serve the many.

The light in the east grew brighter.

* * *

Wilson squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on not throwing up; the olive oil was warm and viscous as it was poured in a steady stream the length of his body, and the reek of refined fruit was overwhelming. He tried to scream again, to make _some_ kind of noise, but all that emerged from behind the tape was a muffled croak, and the crazy fucks who were standing around in a semicircle waiting to kill him paid him no mind.

 _"Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh,"_ one of the crazy fucks intoned, and the others took up the chant as Wilson twisted his head around. Joseph Creech was leading his brothers in a jumble of languages; Wilson caught snatches of more Hebrew, then Latin, but there were other tongues mixed in, rough, guttural words that he didn't recognize. He tried to keep his head up, to stare down Joseph Creech, but his muscles were trembling with exhaustion and the strain was too much. The last of the oil dribbled down the soles of his feet, and with it, the last syllables of the chant faded away.

 _This is it,_ Wilson thought grimly. _They're going to slit your throat, chant some more of their idiot prayers in the time it takes you to bleed out all over this goddamn rock and bury your body deep under this home for retired accountants and plumbers. No one will ever know you're here._

Tears sprang to his eyes as a hand grabbed a fistful of hair at the back of his scalp and yanked his head up.

 _House. House will know._

The knife glittered; high in the air, ready to sweep down in a killing arc, the blade reflected the hot white glare of one of the spotlights. The spotlight ...

The chanting, which had started up again, faltered, then stuttered to a straggling halt.

The light was red.

Wilson drew in a sobbing breath. Someone new was in the circle -- an old man with a white beard, his fingers wrapped around Joseph's wrist, staying his hand.

"My son," the old man said. "Do not forsake me."

And then there were more men, dozens upon dozens, men in black uniforms shouting at the Creeches, men with automatic rifles, men waving shiny badges in the air.

All hell had broken loose as the sun came up on a new day.

* * *

House watched through Longacre's binoculars as the Sheriff's men descended on the Creech brothers, as old Jacob Creech embraced his son. He could see a naked Wilson struggling in his bonds even as the black-uniformed SWAT officers surrounded him.

And then ... House squinted. Wilson was _still_ struggling, but this time against the officers who were preventing him from rising, keeping him pinned to the cornerstone.

"What the hell?" House rasped out. "What are they doing?"

One of the helmeted officers barked a command, another bent close, obscuring Wilson's torso, and Wilson suddenly went limp, his head falling back, his eyes closing.

 _"Shit,"_ House breathed. He dropped the binoculars, and started forward.

"Doctor," Longacre murmured. House felt his hand on his shoulder and threw it off with an impatient shrug.

"Doctor _House_ ," Longacre said, and, as if summoned by the Sheriff's mere tone, two large, bull-necked men with gold badges clipped to their lapels stepped in front of House to block his path. The shorter of the two, the one who was six foot six rather than six foot seven, smiled. For all its courtesy, it was a smile that clearly said, _"Checkmate,"_ and House gritted his teeth in frustrated anger.

"What's going on here, Longacre?" he growled. From the tiny space between the two behemoths' shoulders, he could see an apparently unconscious Wilson being loaded onto a gurney. He couldn't tell if they'd bothered to untie him. A siren whooped -- an ambulance was backing slowly up to the cornerstone, and House gripped his cane tighter.

"Don't even think about it, Dr. House," Longacre said. "I'd hate for there to be any more ... _untoward_ incidents this morning." The taller detective crossed his arms. The fabric of his suit strained at the motion but held. "I'll accompany Dr. Wilson in the ambulance. Detectives Mollock and Ball here," he nodded at the two big men, "will be pleased to drive you to the hospital."

"Dr. House," one of the men rumbled. His voice was almost subterranean in its depth, layers of rock crushed in immeasurable seismic timelines. "If you'll come with us, please."

House looked up. Blank obsidian eyes, flat and emotionless, stared back.

"I promise, this is all for the best." Longacre, murmuring close by. "No harm will come to Doctor Wilson, but we must follow protocol."

House felt his throat constrict; Mollock and Ball watched him stolidly.

 _This is so fucked,_ he thought, and then he said, "All right." He turned and glared at Longacre. "You hold all the cards, anyway."

"Good," Longacre said. "I'll meet you there. We have some things to discuss."

* * *

"Retrograde amnesia," Dr. Bates said bluntly. All the familiar noises of a modern hospital swirled about them outside Bates' office; it was almost comforting after the silent ride up with the Goon Twins.

House stared at him. "Possible," he replied. "But not likely." He wrapped both hands around the handle of his cane and clung to it. His leg ached; he'd cooled his heels for over an hour in the hallway, Mollock and Ball flanking him in the uncomfortably hard plastic chairs of Abe Creech Memorial.

They hadn't let him see Wilson yet.

"On the contrary." A shadow moved behind him; House refused to give its owner the satisfaction of looking round.

"I'd say it's very likely," Longacre continued, stepping past House's chair. "Post-traumatic amnesia, long-term retrograde." His dark eyes bored into House's own. "Not a surprise, given the severity of his concussion."

"Dr. Arbogast and I are in complete agreement after viewing Dr. Wilson's scans," Bates said. "As Sheriff Longacre has observed, this is not an atypical presentation after a hit-and-run."

"A hit ... " House felt as if he'd fallen down the rabbit-hole; the sterile room, infused with the smell of harsh antiseptics, seemed to cant sideways. "What have you done to him?"

Dr. Bates gave him a sharp look, his mouth pursed in a thin line of disapproval. "This is a _hospital_ ," he said. "We haven't _done_ anything except help our patient."

House opened his mouth to tell this officious prick they couldn't do _anything_ without House's approval -- that he was Wilson's physician of record, his long-lost next-of-kin, his older brother claimed by countless shared nights of drunkenness and sobriety alike. All this was forestalled by Longacre's gentle but insistent voice.

"Doctor House," the Sheriff said quietly. "Let's you and I find a conference room."

"Not until I've seen Wilson."

Longacre shook his head. "After we talk. _Then_ you can see your friend."

* * *

" ... damage to your hippocampus," House was saying. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Wilson blinked at him, then wished he hadn't. Even blinking hurt. He wanted desperately to scratch at the bandage wrapped around his itching head, but the act of raising a hand just an inch off the hospital bed seemed insurmountable. What _was_ the last thing he remembered?

"Lights," Wilson whispered. "In th'dark."

House nodded. "The truck that hit you," he pronounced. "In this case, literally." He turned away for a moment; there was the subdued rustle of plastic and a square of X-ray film appeared in front of Wilson's eyes. A white skull, outlined against the darker greys and blacks, a clear line of staples extending through the shadows above the temporal bone.

"Wanna look inside your head?" House asked. "Not that there's much to see there anyway."

Wilson groaned softly. "More'n you," he managed.

House's lips quirked up in a familiar half-smile, and he turned away again to slip the X-ray back into its envelope.

Wilson licked his lips and thought about asking for a drink of water. The twinge in his gut told him he probably shouldn't. "How long?"

The half-smile disappeared. "Two days." House's eyes dropped, and he rubbed a thumb over the polished wooden handle of his cane. "You were hit when you went for help -- got thrown into a tree, damn near fractured your skull." The thumb continued to smooth the already-shiny wood, and Wilson watched it, hypnotized by the repetitive motion. "Never caught the guy, classic hit-and-run. Probably some bastard out jacklighting deer. Cops found me, then you, the next morning."

"Um," Wilson grunted. His thoughts seemed to be moving slower the longer he was awake. He closed his eyes for a moment, then re-opened them. "No more," he mumbled. House frowned. "No more ... road trips," Wilson clarified. "Not ... with you. Dangerous."

House's expression softened. "No," he agreed. "No more road trips."

Wilson closed his eyes again, and the last thing he heard House say as he drifted away was, "But those pies were _great!_ "

[Epilogue](http://nightdog-barks.livejournal.com/1021493.html#cutid1)


	5. </b>  The Sins of the Fathers (Epilogue and Notes)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This section is 1,092 words.

_**_House_ fic: The Sins of the Fathers (Epilogue and Notes)**_  
 **TITLE:** The Sins of the Fathers (Epilogue and Notes)  
 **AUTHOR:** [](http://nightdog-writes.livejournal.com/profile)[**nightdog_writes**](http://nightdog-writes.livejournal.com/)  
 **SUMMARY:** This section is 1,092 words.

  
 **  
_EPILOGUE_   
**

  
House turns onto his left side, then reaches up to shift his pillow to a more comfortable position. Beside him, Wilson stirs and turns over also, mumbles a half-awake question in a voice heavy with slumber.

"Nothing," House murmurs. "Shut up and go back to sleep."

Wilson does, settling back down, stretching his legs and sighing as his body relaxes. His right hand finds its way to House's back and stays there, fingertips feather-light and warm against House's first and second lumbar vertebrae.

 _"What's the last thing you remember?"_

 _"Lights in the dark."_

House stares at the wall. Longacre had assured him Wilson wouldn't remember, would _never_ remember, but sometimes he's not so sure. How else to explain this sudden Wilsonian penchant for treating House as some kind of giant teddy bear sleeping aid? It had started just a few weeks after returning to Princeton; Cuddy had heard House's story and summarily ordered House to take care of Wilson (as if he hadn't been doing that already, House had wanted to object, but at that point he'd figured it would be smarter to keep his mouth shut), and if that entailed taking Wilson into his apartment, then so be it. Come to think of it, _Wilson_ hadn't objected too much either, and that night (and every night thereafter) House had found himself with a roomie. He hadn't told Wilson what Cuddy had said after Wilson had left -- "You're going to get him killed one day, House."

That first night House had spent the night on the couch. Also the second night. The third night, he'd been awakened at 3 a.m. by Wilson's godawful snuffling, and he couldn't get back to sleep, so he'd traipsed into his own bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed for a while. Then he'd gotten sleepy and had laid down on the bed, and when he'd woken up, Wilson had been sleeping peacefully and House ... had gotten a few hours' rest without his back hurting.

So that was what they had been doing every night since -- neither of them saying anything, lying down next to each other, letting the night take them into deep, blissful, _healing_ sleep.

 _"The properties are equivalent to rohypnol, but the effects are much deeper and long-lasting," Longacre said. "Permanent, you might say."_

 _"And you think he needs this."_

 _Longacre studied him. Took out another pack of Juicy Fruit from his uniform vest pocket._

 _"Dr. House," he said. "How about if I tell you what Joseph Creech and his kin did to Dr. Wilson, and then_ you _can decide if he really needs it."_

And apparently that's the way this mystery potion really works -- it's been two months and Wilson still hasn't remembered anything between headlights on a dirt road and waking up in the hospital.

Ribot's Law. "The dissolution of memory is inversely related to the recency of the event."

Except this isn't Théodule Ribot's theorem, or anything related to modern medicine or the varieties of forgetting. This is something different.

House blinks in the darkness, willing sleep to come. Instead, he hears another sound.

In the study, a small bird is calling.

House shuts his eyes. I _am_ asleep, he tells himself. This _is_ a dream. Except it's not, and the bird keeps calling, and finally House swings his feet to the floor and sits up with a grunt born of both exasperation and exertion. He looks over, checking quickly to make sure that Wilson is still asleep, and he is.

Just like the first time.

House gets out of bed slowly -- the damn bird is still calling, a soft, mechanical _cuckoo! cuckoo!_ , and he makes his way into the study, watching his feet in the shadowy darkness, trying not to stub his toes.

In the study, his great-uncle's clock rests on the desk by the wall. The clock's hands point to midnight; the tiny attic doors are open, and the little bird, no bigger than a thimble, perches on the slim wooden rampart, its small song filling the air.

"You little bastard," House murmurs.

The bird turns its head and looks at him.

This being the second time it's happened, it doesn't scare House nearly as much.

"I'm here," House mutters. "Consider your message delivered." The carved wooden bird falls silent, unseen gears turn with the clacking sound of meshing teeth, and the bird retreats, disappearing back into its nest. The attic doors snap shut.

House stands for a long moment in the study. No noise from the bedroom. He pulls out the rolling desk chair and sits down.

 _"I don't understand," House said._

 _Longacre nodded. "You remember, Doctor -- as I explained. Some positions ... are hereditary."_

The laptop's monitor comes to life; white and blue, then a swiftly-turning globe and a scattering of icons. _You are connected to the Internet._ House double-clicks on the tiny red fox, waits for his home page to come up. While he waits, he glances at the short stack of today's mail. A pale blue envelope with a Lexington postmark sits atop the pile.

Ever since his dad's death last year, his mom had seemed distracted. She'd called him almost every weekend, talking about everything and nothing -- the herb garden she was putting in, the quality of the Kentucky soil, how Aunt Sarah was doing after she'd broken her hip. A month ago she'd said there was something she had to tell him, something he needed to know.

House knows what it is, but he's been waiting for her to admit it -- all it will do is act as confirmation of which neighbor ( _Sean Connery_ , Wilson had said) she'd had an affair with.

Beyond that? Maybe there's someone out there, someone Blythe finally felt he needed to meet. If House has correctly connected the dots, there's a small-town pharmacist in North Carolina's Outer Banks who bears an amazing resemblance to him, from an extra-long second toe to a distinctive red birthmark on his scalp.

Perhaps, just perhaps, this _position_ should have been _inherited_ by someone else. There are two definitions for "bastard." Perhaps Longacre isn't aware that House fits them both.

Perhaps Giles Longacre doesn't know the _whole_ story.

He opens his private mail service with the new, separate account. There it is.

 _From: nj.schepenbank@creechville_schout.org  
In Re: Gaston Conrad  
Case #442984AX65_

Zip files. PDFs. Police reports. All the information one needs in order to make a life or death decision.

House takes a deep breath, and begins to read.

~ fin

  
 _NOTES:_

The website I used for Cape May cottages is [here](http://www.capemay.com/). For New Jersey highway and city maps, I used [Geology.com](http://geology.com/).  
The edition of _Materia Medica_ that Dusan Soucek mentions is [here](http://www.prbm.com/interest/i.htm?classics-c-e.shtml~main).  
House was entirely correct about the fraudulent nature of the "antique" baseball cards -- more information can be found [here](http://www.cycleback.com/baseballcardnotes.html), although you have to scroll down a bit for it, and a beautiful example of a real antique card is [here](http://www.beckett.com/item/56148758/).  
The "father stabbers" and "mother rapers" line is from Arlo Guthrie's classic [Alice's Restaurant](http://www.arlo.net/resources/lyrics/alices.shtml).  
The Creechville courthouse is modeled after [this one](http://www.co.hunterdon.nj.us/facts/chpics.htm).  
Wikipedia articles on _Schouts_ and _Schepenen_ are [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schout) and [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schepenen).  
[Here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmer_Giles_of_Ham) is what Giles Longacre's mother would have been reading.  
The lyrics to another American classic, Johnny Cash's _Ring of Fire_ , may be found [here](http://www.lyricsondemand.com/j/johnnycashlyrics/ringoffirelyrics.html).  
More information about Ribot's Theorem may be found [here](http://everything2.com/e2node/Ribot%2527s%2520Law).

And finally, while the [Luxor Hotel](http://www.luxor.com/) is very real, Faro Enterprises is not. Nor is the Eye of the Needle Casino.

At least ... not yet. ;-)

  



End file.
